6. Solved or Unsolved - Adam Walsh, Pt. 1
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It's the image of Adam Walsh that everyone's seen. A smiling little boy in a baseball cap with a t-ball bat and missing baby teeth. Wholesome, all-American, fresh-faced. It's hard not to look at Adam's face and picture the man he would have grown to be. What would he be doing with his life? Based on all of the things that he loved, drawing, video games, soccer, lunar eclipses, what would he have grown up to be?

An artist? An athlete? A game developer?

When you're six years old and if you have nurturing, loving parents like Adam did, your life is all about exploring and growing into what will become your identity. So many possibilities had already taken shape in his six years on the planet, only to be crushed to dust. Regardless of the political, philosophical, and spiritual differences that divide our world, there are some things we're all still in agreement on.

and few would argue that the most tragic and shocking crimes are the ones committed against children. Children are innocent and vulnerable, fresh canvases with their lives yet to be painted in. Killing a child is the most unthinkable thing, and it's honestly hard for me to even cover cases where the victims are children.

But because these crimes are so shocking and unimaginable, some of them are among the most notorious cases of the last century from John Benet Ramsey, Kayleigh Anthony, Madeleine McCann, and so many others. These cases get the world invested in their outcomes.

And the murder of Adam Walsh left an indelible cultural impact. Has there ever been a missing child case whose parents' pain and anguish was so thoroughly documented in the media, whose cultural impact was so enormous? You already may know much of the story and how Adam's father, John Walsh, became one of the world's most famous crusaders for justice.

And the show he created, America's Most Wanted, has led to the capture of over a thousand fugitives from justice, including some cases we've covered on our other true crime podcast, Murder With My Husband, like John List and Paul Marriage.

I'm sure America's Most Wanted probably needs no introduction. And maybe the Adam Walsh case needs no introduction. But here's the thing about Adam Walsh. In 2008, the Hollywood Police Department in Hollywood, Florida, closed the case and named the suspect that they believed responsible. But the person was never fully charged due to lack of evidence and a later recanted confession.

So it's an interesting question. Has the Adam Walsh case actually been solved? That's why we're taking a deep dive into the facts of the case and looking at some stuff that's gotten buried or lost to time. Stuff that might call into question the Hollywood PD's conclusion. And you might find that you agree or you may disagree, but I think it's compelling enough to share.

And so to dive into the Adam Walsh case, we really do have to go back to the day of the abduction. It was July 27th, 1981. The first four hours of this particular day were unremarkable for Rave Walsh. Nothing about that Monday morning gave any indication that her family's lives were about to change forever.

I know it may sound like a cliche to say that the day began like any other, but it's the fundamental truth to the way evil can descend on your life. Suddenly, out of nowhere, like a total eclipse, plunging the world around you into darkness. A nightmare beast stepping out of the shadows for just long enough to turn everything upside down.

That's the kind of beast that was lurking that day, lurking at a suburban shopping mall in the safety of the afternoon, of a crowded public space, things that supply unsuspecting mothers with a false sense of security, and predators who abduct children with camouflage, allowing them to blend in unseen. At least, maybe, that's what happened that day. That morning, Reveille had a full day of errands ahead of her.

Her husband, John, left for work at 8.30 and then at around 9.30 a.m., longtime family friend, Jimmy Campbell, dropped by the house. He

He and Revae were supposed to renew their driver's licenses together that morning, but Revae had changed her mind. She just had way too much to do. She told Jimmy she had to pay her son Adam's school tuition and then re-enroll him for first grade. Then she wanted to stop at Sears to buy this particular lamp that had gone on sale. And afterward, she was going to drop Adam at his grandma's house and head to her 1 p.m. gym workout, which she was religious about.

At this point, Revae then asks family friend Jimmy if instead of dragging Adam around with her for these errands, did he mind watching Adam for a couple hours, maybe taking him to the beach where he worked doing sailboat rentals for the Golden Strand Hotel? But Jimmy told her he couldn't that day. The Golden Strand had recently changed hands, he explained, and the new owner was going to shoot a promotional film that afternoon and Jimmy was supposed to appear in it so he couldn't watch Adam.

He shared a cup of tea with Revae while Adam emerged from his bed and curled up on the sofa. Adam actually put on some cartoons that morning and Revae jumped on the couch and cuddled with her son. Jimmy gave the kid a peck on the cheek and then walked out the door.

Then shortly before noon, Reve made Adam a hot dog for lunch and the two headed out, first stopping at St. Mark's School, which was a few blocks away. The school secretary, Jackie Wing, took the check from Reve while Adam, his head barely as high as the desk, stood next to his mother. Just then, the vicar walked past. Why don't you say hello, Adam, Reve said to the shy six-year-old. Hello, Adam said quite meekly. After 15 minutes, Reve said,

After finishing up at the school, they drove to the Hollywood Mall, which was just five minutes from there. So opened in 1965, the Hollywood Mall was the first air conditioned shopping center in the state of Florida. So it was state of the art for its time. But then in 1971, another mall opened in Hollywood just two miles down the road.

The new Hollywood Fashion Center was nearly three times the size of the old Hollywood Mall and was anchored by Jordan Marsh, JCPenney, and Richards. Meanwhile, the comparatively modest Hollywood Mall only had Woolworth and Sears. So in an effort to keep pace and make the mall more appealing to South Florida shoppers, the Hollywood Mall decided to open a newly redesigned wing in 1977 called Bourbon Street.

And if you look at images of the Hollywood Mall from that period, the parking lot is still full of cars. So it was still a successful mall in the early 1980s. And Revae Walsh shopped there often. Like almost all of the locals, she referred to it as Sears Mall.

She'd bring little Adam along with her to Sears. They'd been to the store at least 50 times, maybe dozens more. And sometimes she'd let him play in the toy department while she shopped nearby. Now, Adam was obedient and she trusted him not to stray.

Annie was reaching an age where now and then she tests the waters by letting him run to the ballpark refreshment stand alone or leave him unattended for a few minutes at a time. But generally, Adam didn't even really like to be separated from his parents. And only a day earlier, when he lost sight of his parents for only a few moments at a hiking trail, he threw a tantrum when he found them.

But the Sears toy department seemed relatively contained. There were always other kids around and store employees, presumably keeping a watchful eye on things. So it was sometime after noon on July 27th that Revae pulled into the parking lot of the Sears mall, which was busy. The parking lot was jam-packed, so she was lucky to get a spot right near the north entrance the second spot in.

She checked her purse and made sure that she had the Sears ad that she'd clipped from Good Housekeeping. She'd had her eye on this one brass lamp for months waiting for it to go on sale and now it had. So she brought the ad with her to make sure it was offered to her at the sale price, which was less than half the price at which other stores were selling the same lamp.

So Revae took Adam by the hand and they entered Sears that day through the receiving door at the north end of the store, passing through the catalog department and plant area and through the toy department. Now it was in the middle of the toy department, right in the center of the aisle. Sears had strategically set up their electronic game kiosk. So kids would huddle around this kiosk all day, taking turns playing the hottest item on the toy market, the Atari 2600.

Now, on current side of PlayStation and Nintendo, the Atari 2600 is a dinosaur with relatively primitive graphics and simple game design. But in 1981, it was cutting edge. Every single kid wanted one. And if they didn't have one, playing the store demo was the next best thing. And Adam Walsh knew that.

So that day, Adam begged his mother as they approached the kiosk to play. But Revae Walsh balked. She was in a hurry to get her lamp and head out to make her 1 p.m. gym class, which was about 15 minutes away. Come on, she said. Adam insisted, though. Please, please, can I play?

Revae saw three or four slightly older children with the controllers, and she only planned on being in the lamp department for a few minutes, just long enough to buy her lamp. So she surrendered. Okay, she said, I'll be in the lamp department. Stay right here and don't go anywhere, okay? And Adam knew. He's like, okay, mom, I won't leave. So as she'd done in the recent past, Revae left Adam behind in the toy department and

with the thought never crossing her mind that this would be the last time she would ever see her son.

The lamp department was only about 100 feet away. Reve looked through the lamps, double-checking the magazine clipping for reference, but she couldn't find her lamp on the shelves. So she approached the sales counter, and a woman named Angelique, who had just relieved her co-worker for lunch, asked how she could help. Reve showed Angelique the ad from Good Housekeeping and explained that she couldn't find the lamp she wanted.

Angelique looked at the ad and said, "I believe we're sold out, but let me check the storeroom to see if we have any in the back." So Reve waited. And about five minutes later, the salesperson returned to break the bad news. They were all out, she told her. So she left her name and telephone number with the salesperson who agreed to call her as soon as the lamp was back in stock. Now, in an ideal world, this would be the worst thing that happened to Reve that day.

But when Revae returned to the toy department, to the video game kiosk to grab Adam, it was deserted. No one was there. All the children who'd been there just 10 minutes earlier were gone, including Adam. Now this was disorienting to Revae, and as we've said, Adam was obedient, even timid. It was totally unlike him to wander off. So she decided to walk up and down the aisles of the toy department, but every corner she turned yielded either strangers or empty space.

Adam was nowhere to be seen. Reve walked back to the lamp department, hoping that they'd just missed each other, that she'd find him there. But he still wasn't there. Returning to the toy department with the panic needles steadily climbing, Reve saw an older boy, a Latino boy, wearing the same kind of hat that Adam had been wearing. It was a captain's hat. She figured this older boy must have taken note of Adam since they were wearing similar hats.

So she asked, excuse me, did you happen to see a little boy about this tall wearing the same hat as you? The older boy nodded his head indicating that he had. She said, well, which way did he go? That was when the older boy blankly pointed down the main aisle toward the center of the store, which made no sense to Reveille. Her heart was racing at this point. She went to the catalog department and approached an employee named Aurora Delgado and explained that her son was missing. What

What should I do? Reve asked. I want to call the police. Now, Aurora tried to calm the nervous mother. Don't get alarmed. She told her this happens all the time. It's no big deal. Just page your son. She handed Reve the house phone. Now, that's something department stores and large retail stores used to have, a house phone that you could pick up to contact customer service or request assistance. So working the Sears switchboard that afternoon was a woman named Jenny Rainer who took the call.

"'I was supposed to meet my son in the toy department,' Ravay explained to her, "'but he's not here. Can you page him?' "'What's your son's name?' she asked. "'Adam Walsh,' Ravay replied. "'Would you please page him to go to the toy department?'

This is when Jenny said, "Sorry, I can't do that because store policy means I can only page him to customer service." Now, Reve was confused. This is a six-year-old boy. I'm sure he wouldn't know what customer service is. The store employee apologized and said, "I'm sorry, that's all I can do." So Reve surrendered, feeling increasing urgency. "Okay, just do that, page him." She then heard the page go out in the store's intercom system.

Revae waited, but no one came. Aurora, the employee in the catalog department, then suggested to Revae, Why don't you go out into the mall? He might have just gone actually into the mall. My son wouldn't do that, she said. But Revae was approaching desperation. So, she said,

She checked the mall anyway. She ran the length of it all the way to the video arcade and back, looking in all directions very quickly so as not to miss Adam if he were still in Sears. She knew in her heart that he wasn't in the mall, but it's like when you're looking for something in your house and you've checked so many places, you begin looking in the most illogical ones like the refrigerator. Reveille was doing this.

After this, she decided to just return to the toy department and still Adam wasn't there. No one was there. So she picked up the courtesy phone and talked to Jenny again. And she insisted that Jenny page Adam to the toy department. Now this time, Jenny didn't argue. The page went out. Adam Walsh, your mother is waiting for you in the toy department. Adam Walsh, your mother is waiting for you in the toy department.

What time is it? Revae then asked Aurora, the employee. At this point, it was 1250 p.m. Adam Walsh had been missing for about 20 minutes. Revae looked toward the garden center and happened to see Jean Walsh, her mother-in-law, who coincidentally was at Sears shopping for plants. So frantically, Revae walked up to her and asked, do you have Adam Walsh?

No, Jean replied. What's the matter? Why are you crying? She explained, well, Adam's missing. Jean said, okay, well, it's fine. Let's find him. Jean began searching the store while the salesperson asked the obvious questions. Where would he go? Would he go to any friends' houses? Maybe he walked home.

Another employee suggested these people didn't know Adam though. And their non-help was wearing on Revae's already frayed nerves. In fact, she wasn't getting any real help from anyone at the store, not the security staff, not the store manager. No one seemed to really care. She picked up the courtesy phone and dialed out to Sue, the mother of Adam's best friend. She didn't know what else to do at this point. Adam wouldn't be over there, would he? She asked.

No, Sue replied. What's the matter? Is everything okay? She had to re-explain again. No, Adam's missing.

Sue and her husband Chuck then got into their car and came right over to Sears, and so did Adam's teacher. And it so happened a policewoman from the Broward Sheriff's Office entered the store around this time. Now, Revae approached her and told her of the situation, but much like everyone who was working in Sears, the policewoman seemed disinterested, nodding while giving Revae stock responses. At this point, more time had passed. It was approaching 2 o'clock.

Adam had been missing for nearly 90 minutes. And that's when Revae picked up the phone and called the Hollywood Police Department. Meanwhile, at the store, people kept suggesting that maybe Adam walked home. Does he know his way home? Revae's mother-in-law asked.

Adam had never done anything like that before. He never just up and walked home on his own, and Revae knew that they were just grabbing at straws by this point. But that's what you do when you're desperate to cling on to hope, hope for the best possible outcome. While Revae waited at the store for the police, her mother-in-law drove to their house on McKinley Street. Adam was not there. And while Jean Walsh was at the house, the phone rang. It was her son John calling to check in on his wife and son.

John asked, why are you at my house? What are you doing there? Where's Reve and Adam? This is when she told him, Reve is at Sears Mall looking for Adam. Adam is missing.

John left work with his brother Joe and drove straight to Sears at this point. Reveille was still waiting for the police when he got there. She gave her husband an account of everything that had happened. John's brother, meanwhile, stepped away and drove to the beach where Jimmy Campbell was windsurfing for the promotional film his employer was shooting. He waved him into shore. Remember, Jimmy is the family friend. And from the look on Joe's face and his body language, it was immediately apparent to Jimmy that something was very wrong.

Reveille and John are at Sears Mall. Joe told him Adam is missing. Jimmy got in his car and floored it to Sears. By now, it was 3.30 p.m. when the Hollywood police finally arrived. It took over an hour and a half, despite the Hollywood police department being directly adjacent to the mall, like right across the street.

So as the cops took the report, more of the Walsh's friends showed up. John Monahan, John Walsh's boss, showed up with his kids. The Hollywood police systematically searched Sears and the mall without success. By early that evening, the Hollywood police had a search team scouring the city with 22 off-duty cops, about five dozen civilian volunteers, and crime watchers with CB radios. A police helicopter spent the evening with its searchlight combing the ground.

But at 2 a.m., search efforts were retired for the day and picked back up early the next morning. Now, once the story hit the news, reports of sightings began to flood in. People were seeing missing Adam everywhere, standing on a Miami Beach street corner at 5 in the morning, chatting up sanitation workers on Hollywood's Van Buren Street, telling them, I want to be a garbage man when I grow up, just like you.

There were sightings from the far northern end of Palm Beach all the way down to Key Largo, but none of them checked out. Searchers informed of Adams' fascination with golf courses, checked the Sunset Golf Course, nothing.

Kidnapping is not suspected, a police aide told the Miami News at this point. The kid is probably trying to get home and is probably lost somewhere and we're searching the city for him. But despite this hopeful statement, it had become clear to everyone close to the situation that Adam likely had been abducted. There was no other logical explanation. The kid just vanished.

John and Revae Walsh waited and hoped for some kind of ransom demand, praying it was that kind of kidnapper. Talking to the media, John pushed his words through tears. He was an immensely loved little boy and we will go to any lengths to get him back, he said. He offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Adam's return. Some

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As time went on, the search expanded. Police and volunteer searchers combed the Hollywood area on foot, with off-road vehicles, with helicopters, with swamp buggies, pushing the search into the undeveloped areas of Broward County. The kind of places you don't search for a living person. The kind of places that you search for someone who's dead and dumped. No one really wanted to find Adam in those places.

Utility workers, truck drivers and cab drivers joined in the search. News was spreading. At one point, there were more truckers on the road searching for Adam than cops. Alamo Rent-A-Car actually donated a half a dozen cars to the Walshes and their close friends to help.

The Hollywood police asked that anyone who owned property in the south part of the county check their land for signs of Adam. This was without a doubt one of the most massive search efforts ever launched for a missing person. And the fact that the searches continued to turn up nothing at least gave them hope that Adam was still alive. But by midweek, the search was beginning to run out of steam. Still, the story was covered every day on the TV news and in the newspapers.

We feel that as long as this is in the public eye, people will keep looking. Jean Walsh, Adam's grandmother, told a journalist. The anguished faces of John and Revae Walsh were everywhere, warily pleading for their son's safe return. John and Revae consulted with psychics, all of whom reached the same conclusion, according to John. They have the feeling that if Adam was wandering around lost or holed up somewhere, he would have emerged today. An

And I don't think it takes a sidekick to reach that conclusion.

The Walshes tried to communicate with the kidnapper or kidnappers through the media. They had an unlisted phone number and John was afraid that maybe the kidnappers were having a hard time getting in touch with them. So he said, we are willing to negotiate what demands are made by whomever has Adam. If the people who have Adam are afraid, we'd ask that they don't harm him and just contact the media. I'd forget the whole thing, he said. I'm not looking for revenge. We just want to get Adam back.

These are statements that he would repeat again and again through every news outlet. But he knew he and his family weren't wealthy enough to be targeted for ransom. So he just couldn't understand why anyone would abduct Adam. I'm not one of the owners, he told the media, referring to the hotel business that he worked for.

They were in the midst of developing the sprawling Paradise Grand Hotel in the Bahamas. He said, "...I'm a working man. If the kidnappers misconstrued my association with the project, they misconstrued it. I'm a normal working father." He made it clear that the five grand for the reward had been put up by friends and colleagues.

Although, thanks to generous donations from colleagues, friends, and even strangers, the reward fund continued to increase, first to $10,000, then to $25,000, then $50,000, and by early August, it was actually up to $100,000. Now, on Sunday, August 2nd, John and Revae went onto the radio talk show of a local psychic named Mickey Dane.

They were really leaning heavily on psychics, such was their desperation at this point. But also, it was John Walsh's media savvy. On the show, John continued his attempt at a dialogue with the kidnapper. Quote, "'The police are not out there actively looking,' he pleaded. "'It would be so easy to just drop Adam off at a church.'" In the event that Adam was listening, his parents appealed to him too. "'Believe me,' Reve spoke, "'everyone knows who you are. "'We know you're scared.'"

John Walsh was practically living at the Hollywood police station at this point. This was just throughout the first week that Adam was missing. And since the station was literally right across the street from the Sears mall, you could see the Sears sign from the windows of the station. And so that was where the command had been set up.

Which, if you think about it, made the Sears Mall an odd choice for an abduction in the first place, like right across the street from a police station. That really heightens the risk, especially when you, again, consider that this was a crowded store at a crowded mall with a full parking lot.

The Walshes at this point hoped for some kind of contact from whoever had abducted Adam. One afternoon, Jimmy Campbell, the Walshes' family friend, was at their McKinley Street house alone when he later claimed a phone call came in. It went as such. John? Asked the voice on the other end. No, he replied, this isn't John. The caller then hung up. It could have been anyone, but maybe it was a lead.

Back at Hollywood PD, the first major lead had come in on Thursday, July 30th. This was three days after Adam went missing.

A woman named Marilyn Pottenberg contacted the agency to tell them about something her 10-year-old son, Timothy, had witnessed at the Sears Mall the afternoon that Adam had disappeared. 10-year-old Timothy had been in the mall with his mother, Marilyn, and his grandmother, Carolyn Hudson, and they'd just finished lunch and were heading back to their car through Sears when he claimed that he saw an abduction take place.

Timothy claimed that he'd seen a muscular, dark-haired man in his 20s loitering in the toy department reading a comic book. He then saw a young boy resembling Adam walk outside unaccompanied through the north entrance and the dark-haired man quickly followed him.

The man then ran to a blue van in the parking lot and got into it. The next thing Timothy saw as he was walking into the parking lot with his grandmother was the van sped to where the other little boy was standing. This would be Adam. The door of the van opened and a second person inside the van motioned for the little boy to come closer and then the second person snatched the little boy, pulled him into the van and sped away.

Now, 10-year-old Timothy claimed both men inside the van were wearing stockings over their heads when this happened. Detective Jack Hoffman wanted the boy to come into the police station for an interview and to be hypnotized. But Timothy had a history of migraines and other issues, and his mother wasn't so sure about this idea. She said she'd keep in touch, she said, and let them know once she came to a decision.

The following evening, on July 31st, the Hollywood police were contacted by two kids who had been playing video games in the toy department around the same time that Adam disappeared.

14-year-old Greg Irizarry and his friend, 11-year-old Angelo Asaturo. Neither boy saw Adam and Sears that day, but they told the detective that they'd observed what they described as, quote, two grungy men walking into the toy department and through the store and then back out to the parking lot where they entered a green van with a mural on it and sped away.

One of the men they described had a dirty blonde, curly shoulder length hair. And the whole reason they were calling was because the night they did call the Hollywood PD, they say they saw the same two men at an Italian restaurant where they removed something, something that looked like a blanket, from the same green van and placed it into a station wagon. The boys wrote down the tag numbers of both the van and the station wagon and gave it to the detectives.

The two men were still at the restaurant, the boys said, if the cops wanted to come down and check them out.

So the cops went to the restaurant and talked to these men. There were three of them and the men claimed they didn't know anything about a green van, which by this time was no longer in the parking lot. The owner of the station wagon gave his consent to have his vehicle searched. He explained he'd recently been evicted from his apartment and was living with the other two guys at a hotel in downtown Hollywood. Now, nothing of interest was found in his station wagon and so the cops closed the lead.

And they didn't check the registration on that green van until 15 years later. And it's really not clear if they ever contacted the woman it was registered to, though. So that was kind of a lead that just went unfollowed. At this point in the case, it was August 4th, more than a week after Adam disappeared.

A 19-year-old amusement park worker named Jackie McConnell went to the police believing that she'd seen Adam Walsh at the park that afternoon in the company of a woman between 35 and 45 years old. The woman and the boy had approached the refreshment counter where Jackie was working, and the boy asked for a Slurpee.

Jackie told the little boy that she didn't have any Slurpees and so then he asked for a root beer. At this point, police decided to contact John Walsh the following day and without telling him the details of the lead, asked him what beverage Adam might order at an amusement park.

He'd asked for a Slurpee, John answered. And supposed they were out of Slurpees, the detective said, what might he want instead? Well, then he'd want a root beer. So that made this lead compelling enough that Jackie McConnell, the amusement park worker, was called in to help develop a composite sketch, which was then published in the newspapers on August 6th.

Now, by this time, a week in, police wanted to talk to Jimmy Campbell, the young man who had stopped by the Walsh house on the morning of the abduction, the family friend who'd lived with the Walshes and had described himself as Adam's godfather. Now,

Now, Jibby had been heavily involved in the search for Adam, and he was also the only person other than John Walsh who knew that Reve and Adam would be at Sears that afternoon. So police wanted to establish a timeline for his movements on the day of Adam's disappearance, and they wanted to give him a polygraph test. Remember that most abductions happen by someone the family knows.

And also for the investigators, it wasn't making sense that Adam simply vanished from a crowded shopping mall and nobody saw anything. It didn't make sense that if the kid was abducted, that he didn't scream or fight or act scared. They felt maybe he'd gone willingly with someone he knew. So this is why they called Jimmy Campbell down to the police headquarters on August 7th for an interview.

Detective Joe Matthews asked him to provide them with some background about himself and his relationship with the Walshes. They needed to know everything that was going on. Jimmy Campbell was born in 1955 and first met John Walsh around 1967. This was when John Walsh was a lifeguard at the Beachfront Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood.

Jimmy recalled that he was 12 or 13 years old at the time. Jimmy liked hanging around what he called the older beach boys, and so he quickly became friends with John Walsh. And they had something in common. They both loved the ocean.

Even though Jimmy was much younger, John Walsh would include Jimmy socially and sometimes even give him a sip of beer or a ride home. Walsh's own fortunes began to change when he risked his life one day to rescue a 10-year-old boy who'd gotten sucked into an underwater drainpipe.

The boy happened to be the son of the hotel marketing company's owner, who because of this then became close friends with John and eventually hired him to work for his company, which is where he was working at the time of Adam's disappearance.

John Walsh learned the ropes and the boss helped him move up in the industry. So by the early 1980s, John Walsh had become vice president and director of marketing for the Paradise Grand Project in the Bahamas. And his friend, his boss, John, two different Johns, worked in an office right across the hall from him. So all three men, Jimmy and the two Johns, had become close friends. They were involved in each other's circles. Now,

Now Walsh had first met Reve after he moved back to New York to attend college. He was 22 and she was 16. In 1971 they married and settled in South Florida. Now Jimmy met Reve around the same time because he was good friends with John and they got a

very well. When Reveille was pregnant with Adam in 1974, John Walsh had actually begun working longer hours from 7 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. And so Jimmy kind of stepped in to help Reveille around the house and help prepare Adam's room. So this is

what Jimmy is telling police, like we were friends. And when John Walsh began working and Revae was pregnant, I stepped in. Now, according to Jimmy, he and Revae actually grew closer while she was pregnant with Adam. Jimmy also became close with John Walsh's parents, taking them shopping, going with them to the beach. All the while, John Walsh, the father of the family, worked and built his career.

Now, when Adam was born on November 14th, 1974, Jimmy obviously became his godfather and he was in Adam's life every day from the beginning of his life. A couple years later, Jimmy actually moved out of his parents' house and began living with the Walshes. And while John was an ambitious workaholic, Jimmy was kind of idle, a layabout.

But the Walshes didn't mind at first as he became a sort of domestic for them, helping with errands and around the house and helping care for Adam, almost like an assistant for Revae.

John continued working long hours while Jimmy continued spending a lot of time with Revae. Eventually, the Walshes bought a house in Hollywood and Jimmy moved in with them there, initially sharing a room with Adam Walsh and then moving into the room next to Adam's. Jimmy did a lot with Revae and Adam, even traveled with them on ski trips, staying with her parents in Buffalo, and then moved in with them.

and I are very close, Jimmy told detectives. Best of friends, like brother and sister. Now, you might be feeling this as well, and the detectives were by this point in their interview beginning to wonder just how close Jimmy and Revae were. They asked Jimmy what kind of sleeping arrangements he and Revae had when they traveled. He said they always got a double room, but after the detectives pressed him further, he admitted, okay, fine, we shared the same room, but with doubled beds. He

When asked to describe his relationship with Adam, he had this to say, quote, I was close to Adam, closer than his father. I was his father, brother, uncle, and playmate. I could play with him and John would read to him. Adam would say, I have two fathers. One stays at home and one works. As much love as you would give this kid, he would give it back. We were inseparable, totally. If he got scared, he would sleep with me. I liked Adam. I love him.

Now, here was where Jimmy began dropping indications that not everything remained rosy between him and the Walshes.

Which police were starting to suspect because this is definitely a weird situation. There were some problems, he admitted. Lack of privacy, for example. This past year, everything was in a rut, he said. I quit my job. I started my own business. I took loans, financed, and bought a fleet of boats, but the business wasn't succeeding. And meanwhile, Jimmy left the job he had at the Diplomat and began working at the Golden Strand Hotel doing the sailboat rentals. And in 1981, the season was slow. The

The previous several months at the Walsh's leading up to him moving out had been bad months, Jimmy said. I wanted to get out on my own. I was tired of making breakfast and doing dishes. It wasn't a free ride. I had a lot of responsibilities for living with them. I needed my freedom and they needed their privacy. I wanted mine. I wanted to get an apartment close by. I wanted to be James Campbell, not one of the Walsh's.

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Let's get back into the episode. So Jimmy claims before Adam's disappearance, he moved back into his parents' house. The detectives then asked Jimmy to walk them through his activities beginning with the evening before Adam went missing.

So Jimmy recalled that he'd shown up at the Walsh's house early that evening to talk things out with Revae. So they were just trying to figure out what his relationship with the Walsh's looked like moving forward. After discussing this, he said that that night he wanted to take Adam to a movie. Adam wanted to see Raiders of the Lost Ark.

But Jimmy wanted to take him to see a surf movie at the Northridge Cinema in Fort Lauderdale. And so that's what they did. The movie started at 8 and ended around 10. The Northridge Cinema served beer on tap. So Jimmy had a beer during an intermission. And afterward, since neither of them had eaten dinner, they went to Larry's Clam House for chicken wings. Jimmy drank more beer and Adam had root beer.

Afterwards, Jimmy said he was going to take Adam to a beach pier for a walk, but Adam actually fell asleep in the car. So he just proceeded back to the Walsh's house to drop Adam off. And this was around midnight.

Now, according to Jimmy and what he's telling police, when he arrived at the Walsh's, Reve came to the door and was curious as to why they were coming home so late. She wasn't upset, Jimmy added. She was just curious. He then carried Adam into the house where the little boy got ready for bed. Jimmy had a glass of water and then he left, returning home to his parents' house where he was now living. The next morning, Jimmy said he arrived at the Walsh house at around 9.30 a.m., just like Reve had said. They had tea and Adam...

and Adam, still tired from his late night out, watched cartoons.

Reve's driver's license had recently expired and Jimmy's had been stolen. So they tentatively had planned to go to the DMV that day, but then the lamp at Sears had gone on sale and she had her workout plan. So she just decided to do that. She asked him if he minded watching Adam that day, but he was still sore at Reve after some recent disagreements between him and the Walshes. So the further he explains the relationship to police, the more it begins to seem strained.

And he went on to explain that he didn't want to say yes unconditionally every time as he didn't want to be taken for granted as a babysitter for Adam. So after this, he gave Adam a kiss on the cheek and he left to go to work while Ravay cuddled with Adam on the couch.

And it's important to note here that Jimmy said Adam, quote, needed a lot of body contact. And this was a comment that investigators underlined in their transcript of the original interview. Now, detectives asked Jimmy to elaborate and provide as detailed a timeline for the rest of his afternoon as possible. Obviously, they need to eliminate him as a suspect.

Jimmy told the detectives that a new company had bought out the Golden Strand, the hotel that he worked for, and they were producing promotional movies. They asked if Jimmy would appear in one, and July 27th was the date they planned to film it. But they couldn't begin until 3:30 in the afternoon.

So he went up to his office, he said, and then later took out all the cells, though he didn't rent any boats because he anticipated the filming later in that day. He said he washed the boats down and then jogged down the strip to another hotel where he intended to ask if he could borrow some additional cells, though he didn't get the chance as the owner of the hotel wasn't in.

This is not a very solid alibi. Now, Jimmy says on his way back to the Golden Strand, he spotted an elderly woman who'd fallen into the water asking for his help. He told detectives that this was around 2 p.m.,

He helped the woman out of the water, went back to the hotel and waited. And an hour and a half to two hours later, the owner showed up with the camera crew who didn't like the lighting for what they'd planned. So they asked Jimmy if he would just do some wind surfing. It was around this time, he said, he was out in the water for about 30 or 40 minutes when Joe Walsh, John Walsh's brother, showed up and waved him into shore. Joe then told him that Adam had been missing since about noon.

Reveille had in fact actually tried calling Jimmy earlier, but she couldn't reach him. He was out in the water at the time, he explained to detectives. He further explained that he quickly got dressed and then hightailed it to Sears where Reveille and John and the police were processing the store.

Jimmy said he drove up and down the mall looking for Adam. Now, it was at this point in the interview that police asked, do you know anyone who would want to get back at the Walshes by taking Adam? And Jimmy answered, quote, we have no enemies. It's a close-knit family. They never brought people home who weren't mutual friends.

The detectives at this point just straight up asked Jimmy if he and Revae had ever been sexually intimate, and he emphatically denied that they had been. It was a relationship of mutual love and respect, he explained. We were close, like brother and sister. But detectives weren't buying it. They pressured Jimmy to come clean about this relationship and...

He did, begrudgingly admitting that he and Reve had been having an affair for the past several years.

It was after Adam was born, Jimmy explained, that John seemed to grow somewhat distant from Reveille. It could have been his upward mobility and ambition with his company, but Jimmy also knew that John himself was having affairs. And Jimmy soon found himself falling in love with Reveille and dreaming of a future with her. And Reveille may have entertained him. They talked about it often, he said, but John was a go-getter, while Jimmy was stagnant and directionless, the opposite of John.

And in the past year, Jimmy acknowledged that their living situation had grown strained. John may have in fact begun to sense something was happening between Jimmy and his wife, but he never confronted either of them. Jimmy suspected the reason for this was because he knew about John's infidelity and John knew he knew. But a few weeks prior to Adam's abduction, there'd been a blowout fight and Jimmy moved out. So now we're learning the real reason.

And what did this mean for Jimmy and Revae's relationship? Jimmy and Revae had talked many times about building a life together, but Adam was of paramount importance. And surely, if there'd be a divorce, there'd also be a bitter custody battle, and no one wanted that for Adam's sake. So the possibility of leaving John Walsh was something that Revae wouldn't even begin to consider until Adam was older.

He was the bond between Revae and John, Jimmy told detectives, who made note of this and underlined it. Quote, but I hope he's not the bond between us, Jimmy added, quote,

So detectives at this point recognized that Jimmy Campbell had the foreknowledge necessary to have taken Adam from Sears. And there was a period of about four hours right around the time Adam was abducted where Jimmy's whereabouts couldn't be corroborated by anyone else. And now detectives felt that Jimmy himself had just established a motive to eliminate the one thing keeping John and Revae's marriage intact.

And another thing that's interesting about Jimmy in this interview, and maybe detectives noted this too, was how he kept switching between past tense and present tense when he talked about Adam. He said earlier in the interview that he liked Adam, past tense, and then followed it in the next breath with, I love Adam, present tense, almost like a quick correction.

Now remember, Adam was still missing at this point and no one knew what his fate was or would be. But also, you know, since his relationship with the Walshes and with Reveille, as he'd long known it, had become strained, even fractured, the tense shifting may have just been because circumstances had changed. Either way, the detectives then asked Jimmy if he'd be willing to take a polygraph test and he said that he'd have no problem with that.

So they connected Jimmy to a polygraph machine and asked him a series of questions. Do you know who took Adam? Do you know where Adam is now? Did you conspire with anyone to cause Adam's disappearance? Are you withholding information from the police concerning Adam's disappearance? Do you suspect anyone of taking Adam? Do you know who took Adam? Did you take Adam?

Now, Jimmy Campbell's answers to each of the above questions was no. The polygraph examiner felt that Jimmy was being truthful, but the results were ultimately inconclusive and he appeared extremely stressed. I'd really just like to go home now. Jimmy told them I'm hungry and I'm tired. The detectives at this point saw Jimmy out, but they weren't convinced of his innocence just yet.

They wanted him to come back and repeat the polygraph. So a few days later, on August 10th, two weeks to the day of Adam's disappearance, they called Jimmy back a second time. This time, he arrived looking nervous and upset.

He asked Detective Matthews, Joe, why are they treating me so rough? He went on. I know they think I'm responsible for Adam being missing. The police are making all kinds of accusations. I've got to calm down. Calm down. He repeated the phrase maybe for his own benefit. I've got to convince myself not to let the barbarians get to me. I should have just said to myself that they were just doing their job, not to take it personally. But I do take it personally. This is very upsetting.

Now, once Jimmy settled into the interview, they asked him if he'd be willing to undergo hypnosis, and he agreed. Once in his hypnotic state, he went back through his relationship with the Walshes and added some shading and detail. He talked about when he first realized he was attracted to Reveille. It was when she was pregnant. She glowed like an angel, he said. I always thought she was a beautiful woman. He talked about how their relationship developed the first time they were intimate, how it just sort of happened.

And then it kept happening. The detectives were especially interested in their shared drug use. This was back when marijuana still raised cops' eyebrows and everyone, it seemed, was dabbling in cocaine.

Jimmy knew about John's infidelities, but he also was friends with John. So he didn't tell Reve, but he sensed that she knew as well. Just the way he sensed that John knew about him and Reve. And again, though drug use and infidelity may sound sordid to some, these things are pretty commonplace and their presence in the culture ebbs and flows. And this was the 1970s and early 1980s before the Reagan era when things and lifestyles were just looser as perhaps they are again. And you know,

Marriages and relationships, they're complicated. All this to say detectives were approaching this from a rather socially conservative framework. Jimmy seemed like a suspect. And John Walsh, you know, he's a public figure now. So while it may feel or sound salacious to be talking about his dirty laundry, it's relevant to the case because it was relevant to the investigators and it's still relevant to the story.

Jimmy continued on as their affair matured, the blissful argument-free honeymoon period began to fade and Jimmy's idleness began to become a problem for Reveille. She told him he needed to establish his own life, that their relationship was going nowhere. We could have a thing. She had told him we should have had a thing.

She told him that she was disappointed in him, and Jimmy revealed to the detectives that after the previous polygraph three days earlier, he'd actually returned to the Walsh's house, and they asked him where he'd been for the last seven hours. He told them about the polygraph and about some of the questions he was asked. Then he and Revae walked her sister out to the car, and once the sister left, he told Revae the police had asked him about their relationship. "'What did you say?' she asked. "'Well, I told him we were in love,' he told her."

I knew that was going to come up, Revae had replied. She then let Jimmy know that his take on their relationship was probably different from hers. Did you tell them John and I were planning on having another child? She asked him. Oh, really? Jim had replied to her. I wasn't told. What Jimmy described as a little argument then followed before they went back into the house.

And though the circumstances, you know, are totally different here. Some of the minimizing language, like was it really a little argument, kind of reminds me of the language Chris Watts used to minimize the argument that preceded him murdering his wife in the TV interviews before he was arrested. But anyway, after this little argument, Reve then broke down and cried over Adam and Jimmy claimed, I held her and she took a sleeping pill and went to bed.

Jimmy reiterated how his moving out of the Walsh's house was a bit acrimonious, and he added that he was too embarrassed to tell Revae that he'd been staying at his parents' house, so he was selective in his information he shared with her about that. He'd only told her he was staying with friends and at his office, but he still dropped by to see Adam, and he was still on good enough terms with the family, he said, even if there were some wounds from the recent events.

Now, revisiting the morning of July 27th, the day Adam was abducted, Jimmy added some more additional detail he'd left out in his previous interviews with police. After leaving the house, he said he'd gone to nearby Jack's Diner for breakfast around 10.30. Then he went to his office. He said it was kind of a

He said,

He again told the story about the lady who'd fallen into the water. He added that he'd come across a lanky girl he'd recognized from the cabana who'd asked him if he wanted to smoke a joint and they did. He repeated his earlier detail about having cleaned the boats and about the owner of his hotel arriving at around 3:00 PM with the camera crew. His story was more or less consistent with a few added details. He then took another polygraph test and he passed.

So that same evening, as police are diving heavily into Jimmy, up in Indian River County, which is about 130 miles away and two hours to the north of Hollywood, fishing buddies Robert Hughes and Vernon Bailey took their boat out to go fishing in a canal. It was one that was typical of Florida's nearly 2,000 miles of canals, long, narrow, murky, and black, full of fish and alligators. And it ran painfully.

parallel to the Florida Turnpike, separated from the toll highway by a sturdy metal guardwell. Now, Hughes and Bailey had been on the same canal at the same spot right by mile marker 130 just the day before. They must have made some good catches because now they were back. It was around 6:45 that Monday evening, and as they were getting their gear ready, one of them noticed something floating in the water, something that looked like a doll's head.

They got into their boat and rowed over to inspect it. That's when they realized this item in the water was no doll's head. It was a human head. The head of a young boy.

They immediately called the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. By this time, the whole state of Florida, and honestly, the whole country, was aware of Adam Walsh's disappearance. So Indian River got in touch with the Hollywood police. The following morning, John and Revae Walsh were in the ABC studios about to appear on Good Morning America when they received word that remains of a young boy had been found in a canal in Vero Beach.

They were encouraged to proceed with the TV appearance anyway, pending identification, and they tried to assure themselves it wasn't Adam. It was actually during their Good Morning America appearance that John Walsh talked about the discovery. At this time, he said, they feel there is a good possibility it is not Adam. They feel there is still a good possibility that he is out there alive.

Now that afternoon, the Walsh's friend and John's boss, John, drove to Vero Beach to Indian River's medical examiner's office to look at the remains. Afterward, John and Revae got the phone call, the one that they'd been dreading. The severed head was that of their missing son, Adam Walsh, and dental records would soon confirm it.

It was the most devastating outcome they could have imagined. One they just couldn't bring themselves to prepare for.

They held a press conference that evening, said,

And this experience would actually inspire him to create the Adam Walsh Foundation, which led to Congress establishing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. So yeah, go John Walsh. After this, John thanked all the volunteers who helped search for Adam and the Hollywood Police Department, who were now investigating a homicide.

The opening paragraph in the Miami Herald's coverage the following day was austere and to the point. Quote, Adam Walsh is dead. The impact of this news was devastating to the hundreds of millions of people the world over who by this point had been following the case. And even now, telling the story, it makes my heart stop to read those words.

So this is where we're going to take a break and sign off for this episode. And as we pick up the story in our next episode that's available now, in the second and final part of this story, we'll continue following the Hollywood Police Department's investigation into Adam Walsh's murder.

We'll look at why some people feel that they bungled the case and we'll examine more leads they pursued and witnesses that came forward some years after the fact. So go ahead, continue binging.