FL FL - Adam Walsh, 7, Hollywood, 27 July 1981

[mistertheplague]

Yes, that's the way I recall it from the book and from news accounts at the time. LOL, I'm old enough to recall when this happened. The police would have been in way over their heads with a case like this. IIRC, they became a little angry with John's wife at first when she kept showing up at their police station.

Even today, there are local LE agencies that refuse to ask for outside help when they need it, but most are now better prepared to deal with missing children. It's still sad to look back on the many cases of missing teens from the 1960's and '70s who were written off as runaways.

I’m actually only a couple of months older than Adam, and I remember the case having a profound effect on parents at the time.

Regarding local LE, currently watching the Netflix documentary on the Texas Killing Fields. Incredible how many bodies of young girls were dumped along a stretch of I-45 from Houston to Galveston from the early 70s to the 90s while the cops did nothing and gaslit families.

 

[mistertheplague]

IIRC, they became a little angry with John's wife at first when she kept showing up at their police station.

Part of this was complicated by the fact that John and Reve were initially suspects. In a murder of a child, cops are/were inclined to look at the parents first, and there were some things in the Walshes family life (marriage problems, John’s business contacts, Reve having an affair with a guy who was living at their house) that understandably caused HPD to focus on them. Problem is they hung onto John and Reve as suspects a lot longer than was plausible.

 

[Betty P]

I’m actually only a couple of months older than Adam, and I remember the case having a profound effect on parents at the time.

Regarding local LE, currently watching the Netflix documentary on the Texas Killing Fields. Incredible how many bodies of young girls were dumped along a stretch of I-45 from Houston to Galveston from the early 70s to the 90s while the cops did nothing and gaslit families.

Not to mention Dean Corll, who was allowed to kidnap and murder dozens of teenage boys from the same neighborhood in Houston. LE claimed all of them had run away and didn't investigate.

Dean Corll - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not to get off topic, but I really hope someone can verify whether Otis Toole was responsible for Adam Walsh's death.

 

[mistertheplague]

Not to mention Dean Corll, who was allowed to kidnap and murder dozens of teenage boys from the same neighborhood in Houston. LE claimed all of them had run away and didn't investigate.

Dean Corll - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not to get off topic, but I really hope someone can verify whether Otis Toole was responsible for Adam Walsh's death.

Well, never say never, but the odds of that are long unless some bombshell piece of physical evidence that law enforcement lost turns up.

Even then, though the DNA technology now exists to test blood samples, e.g., against John Walsh’s paternal DNA, A. one couldn’t assume the samples wouldn’t be so degraded by now as to be inconclusive, and B. my guess is since John and Reve have an enormous amount of emotional energy invested in HPD’s “exceptional closure” naming Toole as the perp, he’d be unlikely to cooperate.

The other avenue is if some of the key witnesses ID’d by cold case detectives but never found *were* actually found and they had something material to report.

For instance, at least four kids were simultaneously kicked out of the Sears where Adam was abducted, for fighting over the Atari display: Adam, another white kid, and two black kids. Adam wasn’t involved in the altercation but was booted because the security guard assumed he and the other white kid were brothers.

The white kid was ID’d years later by Art Harris (after a suggestion from yours truly) but was already dead IIR from a drug overdose. His sister, who was at the mall that day with him and his mother, had some things to say but nothing especially conclusive.

The two black kids, OTOH, have never been interviewed by investigators to my knowledge. They might have extraordinary testimony to offer.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

John Walsh's wife met the TV personality in the '60s as a student at University at Buffalo. A year after their firstborn's murder, Revé Drew Walsh had a daughter, Meghan Walsh, followed by sons, Callahan Walsh and Hayden Walsh.

The family still celebrates Adam's birthday every year. At least one of their children has continued the family activism legacy and has his own TV show.

TV Personality John Walsh, wife Reve Drew, sons Callahan Walsh and Hayden Walsh and daughter Megan Walsh attending 47th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, on September 9, 1995, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, in Pasadena, California

Revé Drew Walsh and John Walsh's Lives Changed after Losing Their Son

Like her husband, Revé Drew Walsh was mobilized to become a victim's rights activist after the tragic death of their son Adam Walsh, though she remained behind the scenes. A family friend's accusations further deepened the family's harrowing ordeal.

news.amomama.com

 

[caraboo.]

The Walshes had a hard time with the Hollywood Police Department because frankly the cops were in miles over their heads. They were simply not equipped in training or manpower to conduct an effective search for a missing child following a stranger abduction.

Also, missing person searches as such didn’t exist at the time they way they do now. The Adam Walsh case was the catalyst for a lot of reforms in the way law enforcement — and society — approaches matters when a kid turns up missing. In 1981 they couldn’t even call in the FBI preemptively because there wasn’t evidence Adam had been taken across state lines. One of the things John Walsh pointed out at the time was that federal law enforcement had a nationwide database for missing vehicles but not missing kids.

Having said that, the local cops in Hollywood did no one any favors. They refused to ask for help from FDLE when they could have, and basically stonewalled/botched the case from start to finish — including, if you ask skeptics, pinning the murder on Ottis Toole once he was conveniently dead.

As for John and Reve Walsh, honestly as a dad I have no idea how they were able to get up in the morning every day and continue on. I don’t know how I would have survived, TBH, except that unlike them at the time Adam was murdered I have other kids who need me.

I always felt like I might know something, but never could see how what I considered possibly relevant, was. I was living in Westwego, LA. Beechgrove apartment's and there was a very strange, (evil), possessive man a scared girlfriend and a very distraught young boy living upstairs from my Husband and my kids. Years later as information about the heinous crimes against young Adam came out, and many occasions since That man and his evil actions toward that young boy keeps coming to my mind, heavy on my heart that I did nothing too help the boy and the lady, acting Mom. Just thought I would check in here see if anyone has been charged in the disappearance of the child.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

"No one helped us in 1981, when Adam was kidnapped," his father, John Walsh, told Newsweek. "The little Hollywood, Florida police had no idea what they were doing ... They didn't search for Adam that night. I was so worried when it got dark."

"With the changes that we're seeing today, the needle has moved," said John Bischoff, vice president of the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "It has moved certainly in a positive direction in terms of the speed in which we're able to engage with the public, the speed at which we're able to pull in lead information ... And we're seeing faster turnarounds in how quickly we are able to find missing children and get that information to law enforcement. Get that child back to a safe place," he told Newsweek.

The revolution in the hunt for America's missing

New technology, law enforcement approaches and civilian investigators are revolutionizing the search for missing persons yet the challenge remains enormous.

www.newsweek.com

 

[ilovewings]

"No one helped us in 1981, when Adam was kidnapped," his father, John Walsh, told Newsweek. "The little Hollywood, Florida police had no idea what they were doing ... They didn't search for Adam that night. I was so worried when it got dark."

"With the changes that we're seeing today, the needle has moved," said John Bischoff, vice president of the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "It has moved certainly in a positive direction in terms of the speed in which we're able to engage with the public, the speed at which we're able to pull in lead information ... And we're seeing faster turnarounds in how quickly we are able to find missing children and get that information to law enforcement. Get that child back to a safe place," he told Newsweek.

The revolution in the hunt for America's missing

New technology, law enforcement approaches and civilian investigators are revolutionizing the search for missing persons yet the challenge remains enormous.

www.newsweek.com

I admire John Walsh so much: he has made it his life's work to get "the bad guys"--- he never gives up--- and he has his son Callahan to help him: What a tribute to Adam- always loved, never forgotten

 

[Mysteries1974]

I’ve known Adam’s case for so long. My parents grew up hearing about him and remember the milk cartons with missing kids on them. We also live in New York, my grandmother told me about the days following Etan Patz’s disappearance because his picture appeared on the television all the time.

I really don’t believe Otis Toole killed Adam, I fully believe this was the doing of someone else but not Jeffrey Dahmer

 

[Queen of the Winter Night]

Sorry if these are dumb and obvious questions but I'd like to ask for posterity.

Adam was last seen by his mother with those group of boys playing at the video game display. Then the employee said security told the group to leave, as he assumed they were all together.

1) Do we know for certain he was escorted out the side door with the group of boys? Did the employee and security guard (to our knowledge) actually see Adam?

2) Were any of the boys from that group identified and interviewed? Did they ever say they remembered seeing or speaking to him, and/or when they last saw him?

3) I feel like everything I've read and listened to about this case is always "they parents believe" or "the police assume" in the timeline. But who was actually the last person remembering seeing Adam and knowing for certain where he was at what time? Was it Reve's last sighting?

4) Was there any DNA saved from the remains?

FYI I am also on the Toole did not do this train. The family feels closure and the perpetrator may be deceased at this point so I guess it doesn't really matter now but it's still interesting to think about.

I apologize if anything may seem obvious to some of you, I have read the basics of the case a lot but I've never done a deep dive!

 

[mistertheplague]

Sorry if these are dumb and obvious questions but I'd like to ask for posterity.

Adam was last seen by his mother with those group of boys playing at the video game display. Then the employee said security told the group to leave, as he assumed they were all together.

1) Do we know for certain he was escorted out the side door with the group of boys? Did the employee and security guard (to our knowledge) actually see Adam?

2) Were any of the boys from that group identified and interviewed? Did they ever say they remembered seeing or speaking to him, and/or when they last saw him?

3) I feel like everything I've read and listened to about this case is always "they parents believe" or "the police assume" in the timeline. But who was actually the last person remembering seeing Adam and knowing for certain where he was at what time? Was it Reve's last sighting?

4) Was there any DNA saved from the remains?

FYI I am also on the Toole did not do this train. The family feels closure and the perpetrator may be deceased at this point so I guess it doesn't really matter now but it's still interesting to think about.

I apologize if anything may seem obvious to some of you, I have read the basics of the case a lot but I've never done a deep dive!

1 and 2. Kathy Shaffer was the 17-year old security guard who intervened in a fight at the Atari station between two black kids and two white kids.

The black kids have never been identified. The two white kids were Adam and then-8 year old Joel Cockerman. Cockerman died of a drug overdose years later. Investigators never spoke to him, though 12 years ago or so Art Harris found his sister, Mia, at my suggestion. Mia was with Joel and her mother at the Sears, just in a different part of the store.

Adam wasn’t actually involved in the fight with the two black kids, Joel was, but Shaffer kicked all four of the boys out of the store because she assumed Adam was Joel’s brother and Adam didn’t speak up. Shaffer sent the black kids out one entrance and Joel and Adam out a different one.

In the book Bringing Adam Home, Sgt. Det. Joe Matthews says he spoke with Mia as part of the cold case investigation he did for John and Reve Walsh. Matthews said that Mia told him they waited outside with Adam until Adam was beckoned into a big white car by someone their mother assumed was Adam’s dad.

Mia has since said that Matthews pretty much fabricated their conversation out of whole cloth. She came to support Willis Morgan’s and Art Harris’ theory that Adam was abducted by Jeffrey Dahmer. My recollection of Mia’s testimony is that she and Joel and their mother were outside with Adam but that he was taken by someone in a blue van.

3. There were a number of people who saw Adam after Reve did. Mia is the last living person we know of who saw Adam alive. Shaffer would have been second to last, along with several other Sears employees who were questioned. Andrew and John Sotillo were cousins who were playing in a tennis tournament in the park next to the mall. They stopped into the mall between matches to eat lunch and reported seeing Adam playing at the Atari station with other kids. Timothy Pottenberg was a young boy at the time, and was at Sears that afternoon with his mother. Under hypnosis he told detectives he saw a young boy get into a blue van outside the Garden Center entrance at Sears. Authorities didn’t follow up with him because some details and the time were wrong.

4. In 2003, a maternal DNA test was done matching a sample from Reve and from the remains that were found in the canal off of the Florida turnpike. The results matched, though some have pointed out that maternal DNA is probable rather than all but certain, which a paternal DNA test would be. To my knowledge, John Walsh has never done a DNA test with the remains, or if he has those results haven’t been publicized. The remains were sent to a cemetery in upstate New York, where they were buried under Adam’s headstone.

 

[Twick]

I worked in a department store in the late seventies. Parents used to casual drop their kids off in the toy department and go do their shopping without a second thought. I remember one little boy who would be there for hours, and helped me tidy the toy bins. He seems so lonely. He would have been easy for someone to lure away if they’d tried.

 

[mistertheplague]

I worked in a department store in the late seventies. Parents used to casual drop their kids off in the toy department and go do their shopping without a second thought. I remember one little boy who would be there for hours, and helped me tidy the toy bins. He seems so lonely. He would have been easy for someone to lure away if they’d tried.

Yes, I’m a few months older than Adam and this was the rule rather than the exception.

Reve was later criticized for dropping Adam off in the toy department, often by people who weren’t alive at the time and were used to policies and cultural norms that came about in large part because of what happened to Adam.

Kids were free range back then. At the time of Adam’s abduction, the Hollywood Mall even had an unsupervised play area in the middle of the mall where parents dropped their kids off and went shopping.