Bringing Adam Home (9 page)

As to the decapitation itself, Wright said that it had taken place with the victim lying facedown, that the assailant had been right-handed, that the person had employed a machete or cleaver with a blade five inches or more in length, and would necessarily have needed two hands on the weapon’s handle in order to exert the required force.

Meanwhile, search and dive teams had been dispatched to the canal where Adam’s head had been discovered, but the failure to find the slightest bit of evidence led authorities to believe that the crime had taken place elsewhere, with the head discarded in the canal at a later time. Law enforcement officials in four neighboring counties searched other canals and fields for the body. Florida Highway Patrol officers combed both sides of Florida’s Turnpike between Miami and Orlando looking for clothing or other clues, and game wardens in the vast swampy regions west of the turnpike redoubled their own efforts.

By Wednesday, the story was front-page news across South Florida: “Adam Walsh Found Dead—Discovered in Vero Canal.” “Sixteen Days of Agony Grow into Horrid, Tragic Climax.” “As Parents Pleaded, Police Suspected the Worst.” Broward County medical examiner Wright told the Associated Press that indeed Adam had been dead for at least ten days before his head was found, and Hollywood supervisor of detectives Hynds warned that a dangerous psychopath was on the loose: “No one else could have done it,” Hynds said.

T
he Walshes returned to South Florida on Tuesday evening and, after spending the following day fending off an onslaught from the media, held a private wake for their son at a local funeral home. On Saturday, Adam’s funeral took place at St. Maurice’s Catholic Church in Hollywood, with more than one thousand people in attendance.

Father Michael Conboy, John Walsh’s cousin and a pastor at an upstate New York parish, delivered the eulogy. “We’ll see you again, Cooter,” Conboy said. “We promise.”

The words were spoken as John, wearing a gray suit and tie, and Revé, in a muted print dress and dark-banded straw hat, stood somberly by an empty coffin. Adam’s remains were being held by police. It was a necessary step, authorities explained. Should there be a confession, they would then be able to match the statement against the evidence.

Also in accordance with standard police procedure, Hollywood PD stationed a photographer to take surveillance photos of the attendees. It was not unknown for a stranger to turn up among the mourners of a loved one, and sometimes that stranger—drawn by the stir—turned out to be the reason for it all. Or to put it another way, sometimes the cops plain got lucky.

It was in this way, then, that the search for a missing little boy was transformed to a search for the person responsible for his death. The former undertaking, however grueling, had been fueled in part by a certain measure of hopefulness; but success in the latter would depend much more on grim resolve. In the end, it would turn out to be an extraordinarily long and arduous undertaking, and where luck figured in, almost all of it was bad.

Photo Insert

Sears video game display and west exit doors where Adam was escorted out of the store on July 27, 1981.

Hollywood Police Department evidence file

Adam Walsh in the captain’s hat he was wearing the day he was abducted.

Courtesy John and Revé Walsh

Missing person poster produced and distributed by the Walshes.

Courtesy Broward County Medical Examiner
.
Photograph by Gerlinde Photography/Michael Hopkins

Hollywood Police Department detective Jack Hoffman, original lead investigator on the Adam Walsh case.

Courtesy Hollywood Historical Society

Detective Ron Hickman, Hoffman’s partner.

Courtesy Hollywood Historical Society

Sam D. Martin, Hollywood chief of police at the time of Adam’s abduction. Martin served as chief from 1974 to 1986.

Courtesy Hollywood Historical Society

John and Revé Walsh, on their way to
Good Morning America,
on August 10, two weeks after Adam’s disappearance.

Courtesy Hollywood Historical Society

The grieving Walshes at Adam’s memorial service, August 15, 1981.

Courtesy Hollywood Historical Society

Ottis Toole, gap-toothed and with a wandering eye, shortly after he gave his first confession to police.

Hollywood Police Department evidence file