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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A serial killer who died more than a decade ago is the person who decapitated the 6-year-old son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh in 1981, police in Florida said Tuesday.

The announcement brought to a close a case that has vexed the Walsh family for more than two decades, launched the television show about the nation's most notorious criminals and inspired changes in how authorities search for missing children.

"Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?" an emotional John Walsh said at Tuesday's news conference. "We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over."

Walsh's wife, Reve, at one point placed a small photo of their son on the podium.

The suspect, Ottis Toole, had twice confessed to killing the child, but later recanted. He claimed responsibility for hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole's niece told the boy's father, John Walsh, her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he killed Adam.

Police said Toole was long the prime suspect in the case and that they had conclusively linked him the killing. They declined to be specific about their evidence and noted they had no DNA proof of the crime, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Wash long contended.

"Our agency has devoted an inordinate amount of time seeking leads to other potential perpetrators rather than emphasizing Ottis Toole as our primary suspect," said Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner. "Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect."

Wagner acknowledged numerous missteps in the investigation and apologized to the Walshes.

"I have no doubt," John Walsh said. "I've never had any doubt."

Many names have been mentioned in connection to the case in the years since the killing, including serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, but Toole's has persistently nagged detectives. John Walsh has long said he believed the drifter was responsible, saying investigators found at Toole's home in Jacksonville a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to what Adam was wearing.

The Walshes long ago derided the investigation as botched. Still, he praised the Hollywood police department for closing the case.

"This is not to look back and point fingers, but it is to let it rest," he said.

Adam Walsh went missing from a Hollywood mall on July 27, 1981. Fishermen discovered his severed head in a canal 120 miles away two weeks later. The rest of his body was never found.

Authorities made a series of crucial errors, losing the bloodstained carpeting in Toole's car — preventing DNA testing — and the car itself. It was a week after the boy's disappearance before the FBI got involved.

"So many mistakes were made," John Walsh said in 1997, upon the release of his book "Tears of Rage," which harshly criticized the Hollywood Police Department's work on the case. "It was shocking, inexcusable and heartbreaking."

For all that went wrong in the probe, the case contributed to massive advances in police searches for missing youngsters and a notable shift in the view parents and children hold of the world.

Adam's death, and his father's subsequent activism on his behalf, helped put faces on milk cartons, shopping bags and mailbox flyers, started fingerprinting programs and increased security at schools and stores. It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department.

It also prompted national legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children, and led to the start of "America's Most Wanted," which brought those cases into millions of homes.

What it also did, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, is make children and adults alike exponentially more afraid

"He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children," Moran said.
SouRCe

Thanks Lee for giving us this ending story. Thanks to the Walshes for all they have done to help police work focus on child stealers/murderers and finding them. My heart goes out to them because they lost their child but they finally have closure to some extent. (wish they would have been able to find the rest of Adam's body so they could bury him properly)

That man (Walsh) went on a rampage in the right kind of way...he deserves a medal if he doesn't already have one.

And kudos to the creeps niece, who kept in contact with her uncle, encouraging him to come clean. It would be pretty easy to just forget that guy.

I'm glad he finally got the closure he wanted and needed.

It's sad anytime a life is taken, but even moreso when it's the innocence of a young child.

He turned tragedy into something positive by helping the nation track down these criminals and give families the same thing he'd been searching for all along- that closure.

God give rest to the Walsh family.

We know we cant bring Adam back, but for what John has done over the years has saved thousands of children, Thank-You

Wow, I actually get a creepy, scared feeling when I think back on the Adam Walsh case. I used to get nightmares of how they found him. My Mom practically handcuffed me to her at the wrist when we went shopping after that. Just terrible.

But it feels good to see the Walsh family get some justice and closure. Bravo, John!

I'm glad that the Walsh family will finally have closure.

Quote:

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What it also did, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, is make children and adults alike exponentially more afraid

"He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children," Moran said.

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Is this guy saying this is a bad thing or a good thing? It almost has a negative feel to it - the whole paranoid thing.

I think he's saying that it might be an adverse side effect which really is a negative that everybody is so paranoid. Which I can agree with.

I think I see what you mean. There can be a fine line between paranoia and caution. Still, I'd rather my family err on the side of caution.

Great post!

I see something similar where they are making all public pools completely drain the water and replace with new drains or they cannot open next year. Even pools that are used for nothing but swim competitions.

An average of one person a year dies by pool drains. An average of six people a day die by drowning in a pool. If we are really concerned about safety and feel we must do EVERYTHING to save EVERYBODY and scare the bejeesus out of people while doing so, it makes far more sense to drain the pools and never fill them again.

You can't save everybody and make everybody safe people, enjoy your lives and quit being afraid of everything.

The nannies and the scaredy cats are turning people into thumb sucking whiners.


That being said, I'm glad the Walsh's have found some closure in this awful ordeal. God bless them.