Ottis Toole Named Killer Of AMW’s John Walsh’s Son Adam Walsh (Video/Photos)

Florida police are announcing today that they are closing the 1981 abduction and murder investigation of Adam Walsh, one of the country’s most famous cold cases. The case of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh’s 6 year-old son is being closed after 27  years. Ottis Toole has been named as the killer. Read more on Adam Walsh’s case below.

Adam Walsh, 6, went missing from a Hollywood, Florida shopping center more than 27 years ago. Adam’s head was discovered two weeks later, but his body has never been found.

A source told ABC News that police will name Ottis Toole, a drifter who died in prison in 1996, as Walsh’s suspected killer. Hollywood police will be holding a news conference on the case this afternoon.

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Police have built circumstantial case against Ottis Toole, long suspected of the murder, adding if “Ottis Toole were alive today, he would be charged with Adam Walsh’s murder.”

Adam Walsh’s murder tranformed John Walsh’s life, turning him from a hotel marketing executive into the best-known advocates for missing children.

“We were absolutely devastated, heartbroken,” he told Larry King on the 25th anniversary of the incident. “We had nothing in common but the anger and the grief. And [Walsh's wife, Reve] said, ‘You know, we’re destroying ourselves. This is not something that Adam would want. We’ve forgotten who the real victim is.’”

Walsh became a tireless advocate for missing children. John started the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center and co-founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His television show, “America’s Most Wanted,” debuted in 1988.

Since 1984, the center has assisted law enforcement with more than 148,160 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of more than 132,300 children.

The Walshes lobbied for the Missing Children Act, which was passed in 1982 and set up an FBI database of missing children. In 2006, President George W Bush signed the Adam Walsh Safety and Protection Act which created more stringent requirements for sex offender registration.

On July 27, 1981, Reve Walsh took her son Adam with her to the Sears department store in the Hollywood mall. She let Adam stay in the toy department playing video games. But when she returned a few minutes later, he was gone.

Police have said Adam Walsh may have been among a group of boys who were ejected from the store by a security guard. His head was discovered in a canal near Vero Beach about two weeks later.

Toole, a serial killer who was in prison for an unrelated murder, twice admitted to killing Adam Walsh, but then took it back. Toole, the partner of notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, reportedly confessed to committing dozens of murders, but many of those claims were proved to be untrue.

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Police were unable to find Walsh’s body in the area where Toole said it was located. During his first confession, in 1983, Toole reportedly said he used a machete to cut off Adam’s head.

Police recovered a bloody piece of carpeting from Toole’s car, but with no sophisticated DNA testing available at the time, so police could never determine if it contained Adam Walsh’s blood. The carpeting later disappeared.

See the news conference on Adam Walsh’s case being closed, and Ottis Toole being named as the murderer video below:

Posted by: Monya

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