Warning: this post contains information about the death of a child and a suspect's many confessions. Read at your own discretion.
Background
Adam John Walsh was born on November 14th, 1974 in Hollywood, Florida to parents John and Reve Walsh. At the time of his death, Adam did not have any siblings. His parents go on to have three children in the years following Adam's disappearance and death.
Disappearance
On July 27th, 1981, Reve and Adam went to a Sears department store in Hollywood, Florida. Reve allowed Adam to stay in the gaming section, watching a group of boys play while she went to look at lights. In the few minutes they were apart, Adam disappeared.
Reve immediately alerted store employees, who called for Adam over the store's sound system. After not receiving an answer, the police were called. They soon discovered that the group of boys Adam had been with were asked to leave by a teenage security guard. She had said that the boys were being rowdy, so she asked them to leave. It is believed that Adam, a reportedly timid boy, may have been nervous to speak up so he just followed to boys out instead of telling someone his mother was in the store.
Helicopter and ground searches ensued to no avail. It is assumed that Adam was kidnapped by someone outside the department store while waiting for his mom.
Only four days after Adam disappeared, the many police officers assigned to the case had reportedly "hit a wall" and were no closer to finding Adam.
Two weeks after his disappearance, on August 10th, 1981, a child's severed head was found floating in a canal in Vero Beach, FL, over 100 miles away from Hollywood.
The head was identified as Adam's through dental records. According to the autopsy, his cause of death was asphyxiation. The rest of Adam's body has never been found.
The Investigation
It has been said that Adam and Reve both believe the Hollywood police poorly handled Adam's cases, both missing-persons and his murder investigation.
Throughout the course of the investigation, many people were questioned and suspected. These people included Adam's father, John Walsh, as well as other family members and friends. At one point, serial killer Jeffery Dahmer was being looked into. Ultimately, detectives concluded that Dahmer was in Miami Beach and did not have a car at the time.
In late 1983, a new suspect arose: Ottis Toole. On the day of Adam's disappearance, Toole was seen at the same Sears store in Hollywood, Florida. He was asked to leave and was later seen outside the store. When the fingers started to point at him, police believed Toole had lured Adam into his car, a white 1971 Cadillac.
Throughout the years, Toole made confessions and recanted them. At the time of his first confession in October of 1983, Toole was an inmate in a North Florida prison. He was a convicted serial killer. Like one of his accomplices, Henry Lee Lucas, Toole often admitted to many murders that were eventually found to be lies.
In his October 1983 confession, Toole claimed "he grabbed the boy at the mall and drove about an hour north before decapitating him," according to a ThoughtCo article about the case. Later, he recanted this confession. Evidence that could have implicated Toole - sections of blood-stained carpet from the Cadillac and the car itself - were soon lost, making it impossible to identify the DNA.
Because his various confessions were always different and he often recanted them, police were hesitant to officially charge Toole. On his deathbed in 1996, Toole confessed to his niece that he did in fact kidnap and murder Adam Walsh. Still, detectives did not close Adam's case and it went cold.
According to an NBC News article, John Walsh asked "Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who," at a conference in 2008. In this news conference, Hollywood police officially declared that Ottis Toole murdered Adam in 1981.
The Aftermath
It didn't take long after Adam's disappearance for his parents to become advocates for missing children.
Just four days after Adam's funeral in 1981, his parents started the Adam Walsh Outreach Center for Missing Children right from their garage.
Together, along with others, they lobbied for the Missing Children's Act, which was enacted in 1982. This act allows police to become active in missing children's cases sooner. It also created a nationwide database for missing children.
In 1984, John Walsh helped co-found the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
In 1988, he began hosting America's Most Wanted, a television program which assisted in bringing criminals to justice. Although AMW ended in 2012, John Walsh is still on the air.
As of 2019, along with his son Callahan, Walsh hosts In Pursuit With John Walsh, which is on Investigation Discovery.
In 1994, Walmart and other large chain retailers began implementing Code Adam. Code Adam is a way for retailers to alert staff to a possible missing or endangered kid within the store.
In 2006, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed by President George W. Bush. According to the Justice website, this act is in place "to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote Internet safety, and to honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other child crime victims."
Although some are not convinced that Ottis Toole really is Adam Walsh's killer, his family is at peace with the news. They continue to be victims' rights and missing children's advocates.
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