New Book Reveals Fresh Evidence in Walsh Case

New book details evidence overlooked in Adam Walsh's murder

The 1981 abduction and murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh traumatized South Florida and the nation. 

After he was kidnapped from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Adam's severed head turned up two weeks later in a canal near the turnpike, and for 27 years, the horrific crime remained unsolved.

While father John Walsh, a victim rights advocate and host of "America's Most Wanted" solved hundreds of cases, his son's remained a mystery.

John and wife Reve Walsh decided to reach out to former Miami Beach homicide detective Joe Matthews, who re-opened the cold case in 2006.

Matthews joined the Walshes on the "Today Show" Wednesday to talk about his new book "Bringing Adam Home."

"Reve kept pushing me and said 'you know John, you've solved so many crimes, you've caught over 1,000 fugitives, we need to give it one big last push, you need to do it again on 'America's Most Wanted,'" John Walsh said. "I said 'Reve, I know the guy, I know the guy who can help us, he's a good detective.'"
    
Matthews said his investigation started from scratch, and before him were 10,000 pages of documents to peruse.

"I'm probably one of the very few people who ever read all 10,000 pages and put it in some sort of order and i started from the very beginning," said Matthews.

In the book, Mathews details the evidence he discovered that was either overlooked or never even considered, including 98 photos taken by Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators of Otis Toole's Cadillac.

Toole was a convicted serial killer who confessed twice to Adam's murder and then recanted his confessions. Matthews said the photos were never developed and he was the first to see the photos. The photos included a machete believed to have been used by the Toole to dismember Adam's body. 

However, one particular image taken of the carpet behind the driver's seat blew him away.  It was the bloody image of a young face.

"Looking at it, you actually see a blood transfer from Adam's face onto the carpet," said Matthews.

"Traced in the blue glow of luminol was the outline of a familiar young boy's face, a negative pressed into floorboard carpeting, eye sockets blackened blank cavities, mouth twisted in an oval of pain," an excerpt from the book reads.

Hollywood detectives were unable to verify Toole's confessions because of a series of errors they made in the investigation, including losing the bloody carpet from Toole's car and even the car itself.

Evidence also surfaced that sociopath Jeffrey Dahmer could be linked to the murder. But in 2008, Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner officially named Otis Toole the killer and apologized for past mistakes, ending a torturous journey for the Walshes.

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