@Kell1 and
@MadMcGoo Just curious….. if you believe it’s neither of the two, could you explain your reasoning ?
And, who is your prime suspect? TIA
First you have to look at the case in its entirety.
It was well known and even made public that the police mishandled this case from the start, they are a small department, it was a high stress incident with national attention etc, they were not used to dealing with this type of crime , sadly it happens .
The forensic evidence, in the case itself it extremely weak, even more so any of it pointing to Toole as the suspect.
Lets start with the remains , namely the badly decomposed skull of a child was found some 130 miles north of Hollywood Florida 2 weeks after Walsh's disappearance , it was found in a drainage canal , and was brought to a the nearest coroners office in Vero beach which at the time, didnt not have a forensic pathologist , just a clinical pathologist , which was kept in a coroners office for months, it was never positively identified as Walsh through ANY scientific means , the badly decomposed, head was examined by an unqualified indiviual , then pictures weres shown to a family friend, who noticed, a missing tooth and a filling in the mouth of the deceased, and identified it as Adam.
Ar one point John Walsh himself said he saw the remains, and noticed, the teeth and identified it as Adam .
Theres no record in the autopsy report of the Coroner comparing the dental records of Adam Walsh to the remains discovered in the pond.. they were sent , but theres absolutely no record of comparison for positive identification, ....none, and there should be. Though this individual "positively identified" the remains as Walsh he also admitted that he "was not a dental expert"
But the decedent had a tooth coming in in and a filling in the exact same spot, in pictures taken of Adam Walsh just before his disappearance, he has those teeth visible , though John Walsh stated that he had lost them prior to his disappearance, the problem was that the new tooth coming in seemed, like it had almost completely grown in , its also pertinent to note that the area where the cavity on the skull was filled was also the most common spot for children to get cavities according to a number of forensic dentists, many of whom were available to look at the remains, in Florida but were never asked.
Sadly thats about the extent of the remains for the victim, as the rest of the victims body was never found, but whats important to note was that the remains were never positively identified as Adam Walsh, and were only "identified," by an unqualified individual under immense pressure .
What about Toole? , primarily his admission and the bloody face print in the back of the car" ..some claim that a bloody print found in the back of Tooles, car resembled the face of Adam Walsh, however the luminol discovery in the back of Tooles, car, was never even preemptively tested as blood, (other substances, can cause luminol to glow as well as blood) and even if it was blood, it was never tested to see if it was human, nor was it ever kept to preserve any possible DNA to match to Toole or Walsh . As for the image itself it can be likened to a Rorschach test, which it is open to interpretation, and theres no ruler in any picture, ive ever seen to give the scale of the image itself
Next theres the mysterious disappearance of the the physical evidence against Toole, you have a case, garnering enormous national attention by the time Toole is brought in for questioning, and the evidence, all just disappeared? the carpet from Toole's vehicle, even the car itself , gone with no record as to what happened to it.
Ive seen the evidence against Toole once referred to as between "Extremely Poor and None" by LE officials
Otis Toole was "labeled" a serial killer due to his association with another known con man Henry Lee Lucas, also whos claims of "killing over 300" were not only doubtful and pretty much impossible, and later proven fabricated, when he began to confess to fake cases, LE would feed him to try to determine his truthfulness.
Lucas,was eventually tied to 8 murders, 3 were disputed at the time of his death (Natural causes) ...but was later determined, that both men were most likely willing intervieweees, who LE used, to clear up open cases, with little to no evidence .
Toole himself was also convicted of murder , though not what you would think of a serial killer who partook in over 3000 murders by his own admission , Toole an arsonist, was convicted of a murder resulting from an Arson which he had an argument with the victim, then barricaded, a 65 yo man inside a structure and set it on fire , who died days later.
He was also convicted of the strangulation death of a 19 year old woman , and later confessed, to and was convicted of 4 more murders, though these were questionable .
Toole , like Lucas, was well known to fabricate stories, he admitted in a televised interview that he did so almost constantly, just to interfere with Law Enforcement. Toole acknowledged that he took info he was fed from investigators, and spun stories, from what he was given, and kept going with them because investigators took everything he said seriously. In many cases, he stated he felt LE was just looking to close the books on open murders, so he obliged.
For example, at one point he admitted to killing Adam only to deny having anything to do with Walsh in the very same interview, then on his deathbed he said he killed Adam byt that was reported to police by his niece, not Toole himself, in one instance he said he dismembered the body, in another he said he left the body intact. He later added that he took parts of the body home, to his mothers house, cooked and ate them, then told others he took the boys body and buried it off the Florida turnpike , before saying he'd "never do anything to a child".....Some felt that was due to fear of retribution from other inmates due to the nature of the crime, others feel that the evidence was being pushed toward Toole because he fit the bill as the type to "possibly" commit such a crime , and Toole just went with it .
To me it just seems like the were anxious to close the books on it, they took the deathbed confession of a known liar, whos made outrageous claims before, with little to no evidence .
Possible he killed Adam Walsh, yes, probable is another thing.
Dahmer was a different story , though certainly capable , he was only named a possible person of interest due to his residing in Florida at the time, and eyewitnesses, claiming Dahmer looke a lot lie the man seen at the mall the day Walsh disappeared.
Though he was living only about 30 minutes south of where Adam was abducted, thats about it , theres zero evidence to link him to the Walsh case. Thoogh a former FBI agent once stated that Dahmer hinted at having involvement.
Jeffrey did confess to all his murders, though I remember reading somewhere that Dahmer stated that he didnt want to commit any crimes, in Florida because it was a Death penalty state, broke and often drunk he decided to move back home.
There were eye witnesses, however that claimed a man matching Dahmers description was seen at the mall that day driving a blue van similar to the one Dahmer used, for his job at the sandwich shop, only a few minutes away.
Ive seen people on this thread state that the victim ,wasn't Dahmers preferred type, but thats not completely true .
Often Serial killers will experiment with differnt victim types, that could be race, age, gender etc... until they usually settle on a preferred target type .
In one statement Lionel Dahmer (Jeffreys father) felt his son was possibly a pedophile. ALso Dahmer did molest one 13 year old victim, and killed a 17 yo victim. Dahmer also was known to sever the heads of his victims .
Coincidence? maybe
Many experts felt the Dahmer (as are most serial killers) responsible for more murders, than he admitted to, some possibly occuring when he was stationed, over in Germany.
Dahmer was serving a life sentence, and was well aware of the stigma child killers get in prison, and once made a statement that "whomever killed Adam Walsh could never survive in prison", being so infamous Dahmer lived under constant protection (or so he thought ) from prison staff.
Seems possible correct?..But possible and probable again are 2 different things
Theres a type of bias we have when something as pliarizing as a serial killer is operating in an area , the public, and sometimes, LE start to begin to attribute other crimes, even those not eveidentually linked to known criminals
It happens here, for EX the Zodiac threads, so many killers, with completely different motives, psychological profiles, and even those who never lived anywhere near California, are linked to these crimes, why ? because humans when faced, with something horrific, often want closure, we want to see the monster in shackles, we want justice, in some cases, even if it doesnt make sense in real terms.
Was Dahmer capable?..... absolutely so did he did he break from drugging men to go abduct a boy, in broad daylight under prying eyes ?....it seems unlikely.
Florida has been rife with predators for decades, some of the worst killers that ever lived, came from or operated in Florida, some even went on the lam there while their crimes, were being revealed.
And just as Many Child predators have as well, in a state that had so many deviant types running around why ascribe the Walsh case, to Dahmer? again its possible, he "couldve" , but it most likely has a lot to do with wanting to solve the case and the weak case, itself against Toole, who (though at one point he stated he felt wasn't involved) john Walsh later admitted he now felt Toole was responsible.
I dont have a main suspect, we have no way of knowing what happened to Walsh, how he was killed or if he was even killed being since he was never positively identified in a scientific manner,
I will say this however, whomever decapitated that child most likely went on to do it again, Child killers often become serial killers, and Florida has had its share , but theres no way to know who killed the child or how, without further evidence
Sorry for the book theres just a lot more to the case, than can be summed up in a few words .