Adam Walsh Murder Case Closed 12/16/2008

[samanthajane13]

12/16/2008

It has been more than 27 years since our son Adam was abducted from a Hollywood, Fla. mall, then murdered. The situation that we have endured since then is beyond a parent's worst nightmare.

Despite an ongoing, 27-year investigation, our son's murder case has remained open -- until now.

Although Adam's killer never served one day in prison for destroying our son's life and almost ruining ours, nor will he ever because he died in prison serving time for an unrelated murder, we are satisfied that the main suspect in Adam's murder –- Ottis Toole -- has now been positively identified and that this chapter in our lives is now closed.

There are two agencies we would like to thank for never giving up: the Broward County State Attorney's office; in particular, assistant State Attorney Chuck Morton, and the Hollywood Police Department; and specifically, the courage of Chief Chad Wagner for moving this case to its conclusion.

We want to express our deepest gratitude to two men who worked with us all these years pro bono to get justice for Adam and give us some answers: Kelly Hancock, former Broward County State Attorney Prosecutor and now prominent private attorney with the law firm of Krupnick, Campbell, Malone, Buser, Slama, Hancock, Liberman and McKelly.

From the beginning, Kelly Hancock worked within the Criminal Justice System to make sure that Adam’s case did not fall through the cracks and to ensure that there was a resolution for Adam and our family.

Secondly, former Miami Beach Police Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, who worked this case tirelessly for 27 years and developed so much of the crucial evidence to close this case.

From all of the evidence presented to us, we agree with the conclusion shared by the key investigators that it is clear and irrefutable that Ottis Toole was the abductor and killer of our son, Adam.

We can now move forward knowing positively who killed our beautiful little boy. We, along with our children, Meghan, Callahan and Hayden, pray for the thousands of parents of murdered and still-missing children. We continue to fight for their safety, and to make sure that no child -- especially Adam -- died in vain.

John & Revé Walsh
Hollywood, Fla.

http://www.amw.com/features/feature_...il.cfm?id=3078

The Story of Adam Walsh

The abduction and murder of Adam Walsh is perhaps one of the most famous child abduction cases. It is certainly one of the most frustrating. Over the years a grotesque serial killer confessed and recanted several times. But 27 years later, Adam's case was finally closed.

In the summer of 1981, Adam Walsh was a typical 6-year-old boy whose life revolved around baseball and Star Wars. Adam lived with his parents, John and Revé Walsh, in a comfortable three bedroom home on McKinley Street in Hollywood, Fla., a growing city with a small town feel.

In the Walsh household that summer, Revé and John had celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, and they had decided to have another baby, a brother or sister for Adam.

July 27 started like any other summer morning for the Walshes. John, a marketing director, went to work at his office in Bal Harbor. Revé planned her day over a cup of tea, while Adam watched cartoons on the family couch. Reve was heading to the gym, but needed to run a few errands before dropping Adam off with John's mother, who they all affectionately called "Gram."

Revé fed Adam a hotdog and told him to get dressed. She had laid out for him a red and white striped short-sleeved IZOD shirt, green running shorts and his sneakers. Instead of his sneakers, though, Adam put on his yellow flip flops.

Rushed for time, Revé let it go. Adam was also wearing his beige captain's hat. It was way too big for him, and almost covered his eyes, but he loved it. And besides, it was hot, in the 90's already. Revé and Adam got into the family car, a grey Checker cab, and took off to run errands.

After dropping off Adam's tuition check at his school, St. Mark's, Revé drove to the Sears store in the Hollywood mall, to see about some brass lamps they had on sale. Revé parked the Checker where she typically parked at the north side of the receiving dock. They entered the store and walked past receiving and the catalogue desk and entered the toy department. It was around 12:15 p.m.

Continued...

[samanthajane13]

There was a display of new video games at the toy department and Adam asked if he could stay there and play with the other boys. Revé said it was okay. She told Adam she would be in the lamp department -- only three aisles away.

After shopping, Revé promised her son they would go into the mall and get ice cream.

Adam's Last Known Moments

Only minutes after Revé left Adam in the toy department, a fight broke out between the boys over the controls of the video game. Sears personnel called for security to break up the fight. 17-year-old Kathryn Shaffer-Barrack, who had only been a security guard for a short time, responded.

Approaching the boys, Kathryn told them fighting wasn't allowed in the store. She asked two black boys if their parents were in the store and they said 'no.' She assumed the two blond, white boys -- a 10-year-old and 6-year-old Adam -- were together, and asked them if their parents were in the store. The older boy answered no. Kathryn directed the black boys and the white boys to leave by separate exits of the store.

Adam didn't tell the security guard his mother was in the lamp department; he followed the older boy out the west exit of Sears into the parking lot. John and Revé believe Adam didn't tell the security guard about his mother, because he was a timid child and mindful of authority. Knowing their son, they believe he may have been too scared to say anything.

Whatever the reason, 6-year-old Adam Walsh was now standing outside of Sears at an entrance he was unfamiliar with, quite possibly waiting for his mother to find him.

Where Could He Be?

Only five to ten minutes after Revé left her son in the toy department she returned. Adam was nowhere to be found. Revé's frantic search for her son that hot July afternoon grew into a 27-year search for answers: Who took her son? Why did they kill him?

On July 27, 1981, John and Revé Walsh launched what is still considered today the largest manhunt for a missing child in the state of Florida. But two weeks later when Adam's severed head was discovered in an irrigation canal by two fisherman, one hundred miles away in Vero Beach, the harsh reality set in.

Ronald Wright, the Broward County medical examiner ruled Adam's death a result of asphyxiation; the severing of his head was done post mortem. But Wright believes that Adam was more than likely murdered the very day he disappeared.

Mindful of the fact that Adam's remains could help catch his killer, the Walshes held a Mass of Angels for their son days later with only a symbolic casket. No burial followed. Adam's skull rests, to this day, at the Medical Examiner's office in Broward County.

On November 14, 1981, Adam would have turned seven. A few weeks later, around Thanksgiving, Revé discovered she was pregnant. Meghan Walsh was born to John and Reve on July 15, 1982. Reve told the local newspapers "there is no substitute for Adam. The new baby "will make me miss Adam more. He always wanted a sister."

Finally, A Break?

Two years went by with little progress on Adam's case. Then a drifter from Jacksonville, Fla. named Ottis Elwood Toole confessed to killing Adam. It was the beginning of a whole new emotional roller coaster for John and Revé Walsh.

On October 10, 1983, Toole, the crime partner and homosexual lover of infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, was serving a 20-year sentence for arson at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.

He'd been in and out of the system most of his life and had known Jacksonville Detective Buddy Terry for 18 years. He told Det. Terry that he was responsible for killing a young boy in the Ft. Lauderdale area.

At the time, Henry Lucas, was on trial for the murder of a ranch owner in Williamson County, Texas. During the summer and fall of 1983, the two men confessed to committing hundreds of murders during a four-year crime spree across the US.

Hollywood Detectives quickly traveled to interview Ottis Toole. In a midnight interview, Toole told Det. Jack Hoffman and Det. Ron Hickman the lead detectives on Adam's case, that he and Lucas had abducted a young boy they saw running frantically around a Sears parking lot.

Toole implicated his partner Lucas in the abduction of the boy. Toole said he drove their 1971 white Cadillac north on the turnpike toward Jacksonville, while Lucas terrorized the child, who was sitting between them in the front seat of the car. Toole said it was Lucas who had cut off the boy's head in a wooded area they found off the turnpike. He said Lucas used a machete; Toole said he held the boy down.

Toole described the boy as being between the ages of 7-10. He said he was "pretty" looking and was dressed in dungarees, a blue shirt and sneakers. The detectives were skeptical of Toole's story. Adam was only 6 and a half and was wearing shorts and flip-flops that day. When they showed Toole a picture of Adam he did not initially think he was the same boy.

Shortly after the interview, detectives learned that Henry Lucas couldn't have been involved in Adam's abduction and murder, because at the time he'd been in a Virginia jail for car theft. When confronted with this information, Toole admitted to the detectives he had lied. He now said the he, not Lucas, had abducted and killed the boy.

The story Toole told detectives that night is what would lead the Hollywood Police Department to announce a few days later, that they had their man.

Continued...

[samanthajane13]

Ottis Toole's Twisted Tale

Toole claimed to Dets. Hoffman and Hickman that he abducted and killed Adam Walsh. He said he had seen the child on the west side of Sears.

He said he coaxed the boy to his car after 15 minutes of conversation in the Sears parking lot. Toole said he had promised Adam candy and toys. When he got Adam in his Cadillac, Toole locked the windows and doors, then drove 10 minutes on Hollywood Blvd to the turnpike entrance and got on heading north toward Jacksonville.

Toole said Adam was initially quiet but became restless and wanted to return to the store after they stopped at the toll booth. Toole continued driving, but Adam started yelling and Toole said he had to slap him several times because "the kid was getting on my nerves."

Toole said he pulled off the turnpike at a service plaza and choked the boy to knock him out. Toole said he drove an hour looking for a place to kill the child. Toole was fearful because he felt the boy was smart and would have recognized Toole if he let him go.

Toole said he found an area where he could pull his car off the turnpike and be protected by the cover of woods. He laid Adam on the ground and using a machete, he kept under the driver's seat of the Cadillac, he chopped the boy's head off.

Toole said it took four to five blows to sever the head and he had to use two hands. Toole said he buried the body and placed Adam's head first on the front floorboard and then on the rear floorboard of the Cadillac.

Toole said he threw the head in a canal a short distance from where he left Adam's body, and then returned to Jacksonville.

"Had the boy regained consciousness after Toole choked him?" investigators asked. "No," Toole said. Detectives thought it was quite reasonable to assume that Adam was probably already dead in the car, long before he and Toole even reached the woods.

Toole told detectives he took the boy because he wanted to raise him as his own son. He said he had lied about Henry Lucas' involvement to "get even with his ass." Lucas had recently admitted to murdering Toole's favorite niece, 15-year-old Becky Powell. Like Adam, Becky had been decapitated.

Detectives noted Toole's demeanor while talking about Adam. He was crying and remorseful. A much different Toole, than what other detectives had seen. In confessing other homicides Toole openly bragged about what he had done, relishing the grizzly details of mutilation, including in some cases, acts of cannibalism.

Detectives noted that Toole's description of the murder weapon and the number of times he used it to sever Adam's head was consistent with the Medical Examiner's findings. There was no mistaking that Toole knew details of Adam's murder that only the killer would know.

The Infamous White Cadillac

Detectives quickly located the 1971 Cadillac Toole had once owned. It was in a Jacksonville car lot. Initial luminal testing indicated the presence of blood on the front and rear floorboards of the car -- exactly where Toole said he had laid Adam's head.

The Hollywood Police department asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in Jacksonville to handle the evidence for them. The Cadillac was sent to the FDLE lab for processing and seven squares of carpeting were removed for further testing.

On October 21, 1983, under tight security, Toole was taken to Hollywood, Florida. He walked detectives through his steps that fateful July afternoon. Toole identified the correct Sears store where he said he had abducted Adam. He correctly identified the canal where he said he had thrown Adam's head. Toole also showed detectives a woody area in a citrus grove where he said he had severed Adam's head and then buried the rest of Adam's remains.

Short-Lived Closure

That very night at a dramatic news conference, Hollywood Police Chief Sam Martin told South Florida citizens what they'd been waiting two years to hear: The man responsible for Adam Walsh's murder had been located and he had confessed. A photo of Ottis Ellwood Toole was released to the media. John and Reve Walsh thought they were on the way to closure in the case.

John Walsh addressed the media the following day, "My heart will always be broken for the rest of my life. I miss Adam more now, than when he went missing, because the reality hadn't set in at that time." John said he prayed that the "criminal justice system will not break down and that Adam will receive justice."

But there was still no justice for Adam Walsh. Without physical evidence to tie Toole to the murder, the State Attorney refused to prosecute the case.

An exhaustive search of the wooded area where Toole said he had buried Adam's body turned up nothing. Then, Toole's story started to change. He began to wonder aloud to police whether he had in fact killed Adam, "because if I had killed Adam, I would be able to find his body."

Toole later told police he had taken Adam's remains with him to Jacksonville and cremated him in an ice box in his mother's backyard, then discarded the charred remains at the city dump.

On January 6, 1984, three months after his first confession, Toole recanted, saying he did not kill Adam Walsh.

Continued...

[samanthajane13]

Evidence Lost, A Painful Mystery Remains

What may be the most bizarre twist in the Adam Walsh case occurred a few weeks later. The FDLE transferred the carpet samples and Toole's 1971 Cadillac to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Since Toole had recanted his confession, someone deemed the evidence no longer viable and the carpet samples were thrown out. The vehicle was sold to a used car lot and eventually junked for scrap.

With the loss of evidence, the opportunity to do DNA testing of the carpets to determine once and for all if Adam was ever in Toole's white Cadillac is now gone.

Ottis Toole died at Raiford Prison in September 1996, taking the truth of whether he was Adam's killer or just a false confessor to his grave. His family said he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and AIDS and had been ailing for many years.

However, Toole's death took Hollywood Police by surprise and now they had lost their opportunity to do a death bed interview.

The investigation of Adam's murder was riddled with mistakes and missed opportunities, not because of a direct maliciousness towards the family, but because like many small town police departments the Hollywood Police Department held onto their pride, wanting to handle the case their way.

Many believe Hollywood PD lacked the experience to investigate a homicide, and now as it is painfully aware, they lacked the experience to even know when to ask for help.

It is a heart break for John and Reve Walsh, who will never know what really happened to Adam, why it happened, and most importantly to have his remains so that they can lay him to rest.

On Dec. 16, 2008, the Hollywood, Fla. police department announced that the investigation into Adam Walsh's murder had been closed, and that Ottis Toole was responsible for the abduction and murder.

http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=39789

[samanthajane13]

Fla. police close books on '81 Walsh killing
Tue Dec 16, 6:05 pm ET



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.

Police named Ottis Toole, saying he was long the prime suspect in the case and that they had conclusively linked him to the killing. They declined to be specific about their evidence and did not note any DNA proof of the crime, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Walsh 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, who launched a fresh review of the case after taking over the department last year. "Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect."

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.

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.

Toole died in prison of cirrhosis in 1996 at the age of 49. He was serving five life sentences for murders unrelated to Adam's death.

The Walshes, who appeared Tuesday flanked by their other children, long ago derided the investigation as botched. Still, John Walsh 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 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.

"In 1981, when a child disappeared, you couldn't enter information about a child into the FBI database. You could enter information about stolen cars, stolen guns but not stolen children," said Ernie Allen, president of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, co-founded by John Walsh. "Those things have all changed."

The case also prompted national legislation to create a national 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.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/..._us/adam_walsh

I'm sooo very happy that John and Reve have finally gotten the closure that has been given to so many others since Adam's death.

Adam's legacy has come full circle.

John-you have been one of my heros for a VERY LONG TIME, and you so deserve to know who killed your precious son!

God be with you and your family!

RIP-Adam...now we know.

[One2Snoop]

AMEN!

[RaVeN71806]

I'm very happy now that John and Reve have closure now and that the killer is now known...John is also my hero for many things he has done for the missing and found children out there...may god bless...RIP Adam

[FDInLaw]

Praying that the Walsh family can find some closure after all these years. . . Rest in Peace, Adam!

[susie31023]

I pray this gives the Walsh family some closure and that they may find some peace in knowing this man can never harm another child. My heart and prayers are with them. Much love to them all~Suz

[samanthajane13]

Adam Walsh case transformed missing kid searches
Wed Dec 17, 8:24 am ET



HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – The abduction happened 27 years ago, at a time when parents routinely left their children playing in the toy store, unattended, and continued shopping.

But when Reve Walsh returned to pick up her 6-year-old son, he wasn't there. Over the mall loudspeaker, the plea came: "Adam Walsh, please come to customer service."

Two weeks later, fishermen discovered the boy's severed head in a canal 120 miles away from the Hollywood mall. His body was never found.

The case led to advances in police searches for missing youngsters and a notable shift in the view parents and children have of the world.

On Tuesday, police closed their investigation. They said a serial killer who died more than a decade ago in prison was responsible for Adam's death. They admitted making crucial errors in the case and apologized to the Walshes.

But Adam's death, and his father's transformation from a hotel developer to an activist, helped put missing children's faces on milk cartons and in mailboxes, started fingerprinting programs and increased security at schools and stores.

It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department. And it prompted legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children. It also prompted the television program "America's Most Wanted," hosted by John Walsh, which brought such cases into millions of homes.

"In 1981, when a child disappeared, you couldn't enter information about a child into the FBI database. You could enter information about stolen cars, stolen guns but not stolen children," said Ernie Allen, president of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which was co-founded by John Walsh. "Those things have all changed."

Jim Larson of Orlando witnessed the effects of John Walsh's work. His wife, Carla, was abducted in a grocery store parking lot one afternoon in 1997 and was raped and strangled. He credits "America's Most Wanted" with catching her killer.

"Maybe, eventually, they would have gotten there," Larson said of police. "But it seemed like right after the show aired, calls were coming in and leads were followed and they got him."

The man convicted in the killing, John Huggins, is now on Florida's death row.

Others are more hesitant to dole out credit. John Walsh's efforts, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, have made children and adults exponentially more afraid of the world.

"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.

Police closed the case without any new evidence or even anyone they could charge with the crime.

"For 27 years, we've been asking who can take a 6-year-old boy and murder and decapitate him. We needed to know. We needed to know," said John Walsh. "The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over."

Police said the man long considered the lead suspect, Ottis Toole, was conclusively linked to the murder, but largely with circumstantial evidence.

"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."

The Walshes, on network TV morning shows Wednesday, said they were grateful that Wagner had launched a fresh review of the investigation after taking over the department last year and finally ended the case.

"This helped us close a chapter. No closure, I hate that word. It's about justice. It's not about revenge or vigilantism," John Walsh said on ABC's "Good Morning America.".

Reve Walsh, on NBC's "Today" show, added: "You never get over it. It's like losing a limb. You just live without it and try to get around it."

Authorities made a series of errors over the years, losing the bloodstained carpeting in Toole's car — preventing DNA testing — and the car itself.

In 1997, Adam's father, John Walsh, released the book "Tears of Rage," that criticized the police department's work.

"So many mistakes were made," he said. "It was shocking, inexcusable and heartbreaking."

John Walsh has long thought Toole was responsible, saying investigators found a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to what Adam was wearing when he was abducted.

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

Toole confessed to the killing, but later recanted. He claimed hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole's niece told John Walsh her uncle gave a deathbed confession to the crime.

Toole died in prison of cirrhosis in 1996 at the age of 49. He was serving five life sentences for murders unrelated to Adam's death.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081217/..._us/adam_walsh

[Wicked Mistress]

It's very refreshing to see a closed case on such a LONG case...my only question upon reading the story is how the police linked Toole with Walsh's death if he has been dead himself for so long? Why did the police not find links earlier?

[samanthajane13]

"It's very refreshing to see a closed case on such a LONG case...my only question upon reading the story is how the police linked Toole with Walsh's death if he has been dead himself for so long? Why did the police not find links earlier?"

Yes-they found shorts and a sandal that MAY have belonged to Adam, but Toole's niece is the one who finally came forward and told of the death-bed confession.

[Wicked Mistress]

Originally Posted by samanthajane13

"It's very refreshing to see a closed case on such a LONG case...my only question upon reading the story is how the police linked Toole with Walsh's death if he has been dead himself for so long? Why did the police not find links earlier?"

Yes-they found shorts and a sandal that MAY have belonged to Adam, but Toole's niece is the one who finally came forward and told of the death-bed confession.

I see...thanks for the response.

[samanthajane13]

Case closed? Questions linger in Adam Walsh probe
By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer Matt Sedensky, Associated Press Writer – Fri Dec 19, 4:27 am ET



HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A quarter-century ago, Adam Walsh's accused killer accompanied police to a bus bench outside a Sears where he claimed to have snatched the 6-year-old boy. Then, Ottis Toole went with authorities to a turnpike where he said Adam cried for his mother. Later, they stopped at a bridge where Toole said he hacked off the boy's head.

But did he really do it?

The story was one of several accounts Toole gave over the years. And while Adam's father, "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, has long believed Toole abducted and decapitated his son on July 27, 1981, it wasn't until this week that Hollywood police said they agreed, and closed the case. But there was no new evidence, nothing new that came to light.

New Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner said after a re-examination of the evidence, he believes Toole could have been tried and convicted before he died in 1996 serving a life sentence for other killings. Detectives were too hesitant, he says, partly because they didn't want to admit mistakes they made investigating Toole.

But the case against Toole has holes. An Associated Press examination of documents released with this week's announcement leaves many questions about the kidnapping and killing — there is nothing standing alone points to Toole. There are no DNA or blood tests, no slam-dunk eyewitness accounts.

"If you're looking for that magic wand, that one piece of evidence, it's not there," Wagner admits.

Even basic details of what happened can't be determined because Toole never kept his confessions straight (when he wasn't recanting).

He said he picked up Adam outside Sears. Or was it by the mall merry-go-round? He said he bribed the boy with candy — except when he said he used a baseball glove. He said he threw the boy's body into the same central Florida canal as his head, the only part of Adam ever found. He also said he buried the body off a highway and burned it in his mother's yard in Jacksonville. He took credit for many murders — including some committed by others.

He once accused his sometime traveling partner, another self-professed serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, of being Adam's slayer — but Lucas was jailed then. In a 1996 AP prison interview, Lucas said Toole confessed to him, even taking him to the mall to show him where he picked up Adam and to the spot where he supposedly killed him. Lucas died in 2001.

Jailed for the 1982 murder of a Jacksonville man, Toole began confessing to Adam's slaying and others in 1983, sometimes to detectives from other jurisdictions checking to see if he could be linked to homicides of children and adults they were investigating.

For example, despite having confessed to Adam's slaying, he told a Texas detective that he was incapable of killing a child. "I wouldn't do that. Not no little kid," Toole laughed, according to the documents.

A day later, in a conversation with the same investigator, Toole said he killed Adam then dismembered the boy's body. But later in the same interview he said he left the body intact.

In one of the most gruesome explanations of Adam's fate, Toole told a Brevard County investigator that he chopped off the boy's head, then brought his body back to Jacksonville and burned it in his mother's yard. "I ate a little bit of him," the detective recalled Toole saying. But Toole told others he buried it by the Florida's Turnpike or dumped it in the canal with the head.

When the Brevard investigator asked why he kept recanting if he really did it, Toole blamed the Hollywood detectives.

"Every time I'd tell them something, they would tell me I was lying and I was a liar," he later recalled Toole saying. "They finally just made me mad ... You are right, I didn't do it."

Kathleen Heide, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said Toole's confessions may have been his way of attaining notoriety or "immortality." But when he realized the disadvantage such a confession would have — say, retribution from fellow inmates — he recanted.

"Sometimes these people are thinking in terms of chess games," said Heide, who studies homicides and child abductions. "But they're not that smart, and they don't play chess. Somebody who is going to commit a crime like that has problems with human decency and morality."

But why confess and recant several times? Heide says Toole's low IQ, his troubled childhood and his inability to distinguish reality from fantasy all played a role.

"His hold on reality was likely quite slippery," she said.

Some eyewitnesses identified Toole as the weird man they saw at the mall the day Adam disappeared. Years later, others said they recognized the kidnapper the second he first appeared on TV — infamous Wisconsin serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who lived in South Florida in 1981. Some in the community still believe the case is stronger against Dahmer, who was killed in prison 14 years ago.

The two pieces of evidence that might have provided definitive answers with today's advanced DNA testing were lost by Hollywood police during their investigation — a bloodstained carpet taken from Toole's car and the car itself.

No one knows where they are.

___

Associated Press writers Sarah Larimer, Tamara Lush and Travis Reed in Miami; Mitch Stacy and Christine Armario in Tampa; and Mike Schneider in Orlando contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081219/..._us/adam_walsh