Suspect in Adam Walsh
abduction case located
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By Eban Perez
Associated Press
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - Authorities plan to interview a suspect in the 1981 Adam Walsh murder, a grisly unsolved case that helped raise awareness about missing children.
"There is new information and there is a suspect. The suspect is a stranger," Adam's father, John Walsh, host of the TV show "America's Most Wanted," said Tuesday in a videotaped statement. "That's about all they've told us."
Joel Cantor, a lawyer for the Hollywood Police Department, said that Detective Mark Smith identified a main suspect in the past six months. Smith planned to interview the person, whom investigators have not yet talked to, and he also was examining one or two other possible perpetrators, Cantor said.
Cantor suggested an arrest could be imminent. He said the person whom police plan to interview is not considered a new suspect.
Police believe more than one person is responsible for the killing, Cantor said.
Six-year-old Adam was abducted from a Sears store in a mall across from Hollywood police headquarters. His severed head was found two weeks later in Vero Beach, 120 miles north of the mall. The body was never found.
Police continue to investigate hundreds of leads. They even interviewed the late serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in a Wisconsin prison because they had information Dahmer had been in the Hollywood area, Cantor said.
After the murder, Walsh became host of "America's Most Wanted," which profiles fugitives, and set up the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"We have always prayed that Adam's killer would be caught and brought to justice because I believe my family and I need that closure," Walsh said in the statement.
The Walsh family also helped persuade Congress to pass the Missing Children's Act in 1982 urging local police to start searches more quickly.
John Walsh also lobbied Congress to create an FBI computer database to track missing children; President Reagan signed the bill into law Oct. 12, 1982.
A movie about the case, starring former "Hill Street Blues" star Daniel J. Travanti as John Walsh, was broadcast in October 1983.
Meanwhile, a judge ruled Monday that police can keep the Walsh case file sealed from the public because it is still an active investigation.
Three newspapers, the Mobile (Ala.) Press Register, the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale and the Palm Beach Post, had asked the judge to force police to open their files.
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