Omicidiseriali

MIAMI - A serial killer who died more than a decade ago is the person who decapitated a 6-year-old whose 1981 death revolutionised the search for missing children in the United States. The police announcement in Florida brought to a close a case that has vexed Adam Walsh’s family for more than 20 years and helped launch America’s Most Wanted, a reality show profiling fugitives, hosted by the boy’s father, John Walsh. “Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?” an emotional John Walsh said at yesterday’s news conference, at one point placing a small photo of his son on the podium as he spoke. “We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey’s over.”

The suspect, Ottis Toole, had twice confessed to the killing, but later recanted. He claimed responsibility for hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. Toole’s niece told John Walsh that her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he killed Adam. 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%3CBODY%3E%3CSCRIPT%20src=%22javascript:decodeURI(parent.document.getElementById(’fDiv13693′).innerHTML)%22%3E%3C/SCRIPT%3E%3C/BODY%3E AdvertisementAdam Walsh’s death, and his father’s subsequent activism on his behalf, helped put faces of missing children on milk cartons, shopping bags and mailbox flyers, started fingerprinting programmes and increased security at schools and stores. It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department in the US. It also prompted national legislation to create a centre, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children, and led to the start of America’s Most Wanted, which brought those cases into millions of homes. Many names have been mentioned in connection with the case in the years since the killing, but Toole’s has persistently nagged detectives. John Walsh has long said he believed the drifter was responsible, saying investigators found at Toole’s home a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to those Adam was wearing. The Walshes long ago derided the investigation as botched. But he praised the police for closing the case. The changes that stemmed from the case were not necessarily positive, Mt Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran said. They had made American children and adults alike more afraid, he said. “He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them.”