Adam Walsh murder solved, Florida police say

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.”

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, but said an extensive review of the case file pointed only to Toole, as John Walsh long contended.

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.

Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner, who launched a fresh review of the case after taking over the department last year, acknowledged numerous missteps in the investigation and apologized to the Walshes.

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.

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.