July 27, 1981, quickly went from an ordinary day to tragedy for the Walsh family.
That day, Lev Walsh and his 6-year-old son, Adam, went to a Sears in Hollywood, Florida, where the son went to the video game section while his mother was browsing a few rows away, History.com reports.
When his mother went down the aisle to retrieve him, he was gone. Investigators said they discovered Adam had left the store with some older boys who had been asked to leave for causing trouble.
Six-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted on July 27, 1981. (Associated Press)
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Adam’s parents launched a massive search to find him, even offering a $100,000 reward to draw attention to the case.
“The FBI didn’t help us when Adam was abducted,” Walsh previously told Fox News Digital. “They refused to put Adam on the NCIC (National Criminal Information Computer), which in 1981 had millions of records on convicted felons, stolen boats, stolen cars, stolen planes. There were no files on unidentified dead people, no files on missing children, nothing.”
Less than two weeks after Adam went missing from the department store, two fishermen found his severed head in a Vero Beach drainage ditch, about 100 miles from where he was kidnapped, according to History.com. Adam’s body was never found.
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“I was heartbroken,” Walsh told Fox News Digital upon hearing the tragic discovery.
It took 27 years for Adam’s case to be finally resolved.
Ottis Elwood Toole eventually confessed to Adam’s murder, but his statement was recited and recanted many times over the years after Adam’s murder was discovered.
Adam’s father, John Walsh, is co-founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/File)
According to History.com, Toole, who was incarcerated in a Florida prison, confessed to Adam’s kidnapping and murder in October 1983. Toole claimed that serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was also involved in the crime, but it was later discovered that Lucas was in prison at the time of the kidnapping.
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Investigators were never able to find Adam’s body where Toole claimed he had buried him, and no physical evidence was ever found in the incident.
A few months after his confession, Toole recanted.
Toole continued to confess and recant in subsequent years. According to History.com, another suspect in Adam’s murder was Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who was living in Florida at the time.
Toole was convicted of six murders and died in prison in 1996. According to History.com, it wasn’t until December 16, 2008 that police announced they had enough evidence to hold Toole responsible for Adam’s death and closed the case.
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Since then, Adam’s family, including his brother Callahan, who wasn’t even born when Adam disappeared, have dedicated their lives to advocacy.
John Walsh and his son Callahan Walsh are the hosts of “America’s Most Wanted,” a show that began after Adam’s death to help track down dangerous criminals. (Michael Becker/FOX ©2024 FOX Media LLC)
John is the creator and host of “America’s Most Wanted,” a show that has pursued criminals for more than 40 years, and which he started in 1988 after his son was murdered.
“I grew up in a lovely gated community. [and] “We didn’t think crime would affect us,” Walsh previously told Fox News Digital, “… What I’ve learned over the last few years is that bad guys are going to come to your neighborhood. It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter where you are. They can do something to you, and they can get you.”
The program has contributed to the arrest of over 1,190 criminals.
“What motivated me was the fact that no one was willing to help us find Adam,” Walsh previously told Fox News Digital. “We put a man on the moon, but we couldn’t put missing children into the FBI’s giant computers. But we kept trying. We loved that little boy so much, and we had no idea who killed him. It took 27 years to find out who did it. It took a brilliant retired detective and district attorney who went through the files, discovered Adam’s murder, and solved Adam’s case. But that drive — my love for Adam — is what has driven me.”
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Walsh is also a co-founder of the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and Callahan serves as executive director of its Florida chapter.
On the 25th anniversary of Adam’s abduction, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act into law in 2006. (Tim Sloane/AFP via Getty Images)
On July 27, 2006, 25 years after Adam’s disappearance, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act into law. According to History.com, the act “created a national database of convicted child sex offenders, increased federal penalties for crimes against children, and provided funding and training for law enforcement agencies to combat crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet.”
