Police: ’81 murder of Adam Walsh solved – Crime & courts- msnbc.com

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Authorities in South Florida planned to announce on Tuesday that they’ve finally solved the 1981 killing of a little boy whose father later gained fame as the host of “America’s Most Wanted.”

Hollywood police held a news conference to close the case of the abduction and homicide of 6-year-old Adam Walsh. Police identified the boy’s killer as Ottis Toole, a drifter who confessed to the murder, then recanted before dying in prison in 1996.

Adam’s parents, John and Reve Walsh, long ago derided the investigation as botched. Both attended a news conference, where the Walshes gave a tearful account of what’s it’s been like not knowing for decades who killed their son.

The boy 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.