The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh: Box Set: Books One and Two

by Arthur Jay Harris

You may think you know the whole story of Adam Walsh—the 6-year-old found killed, whose father, John Walsh, became a crime-fighting TV host. We’ve long been told that the dead child was Adam—but astonishingly, the medical examiner file doesn’t legally confirm it. It should be in an autopsy report, since an autopsy was done—but as Harris reported in the Miami Herald, there is no autopsy report. That never happens. Without legal proof of who’s been killed, how can you have a murder trial?

A famous old crime. No linking physical evidence. For decades, the murder of Adam Walsh, the iconic face of Missing Children, the boy on the milk carton, was an unsolved mystery. Suddenly police declared a solution resurrected on a theory of theirs they’d long discredited. At a live nationally-televised police press conference, the victim’s family was tearful and grateful.

The national media bought it. The local press, however, realized it was a convenient fiction.

On July 30, 2021, days after the 40th anniversary of Adam’s disappearance, Fred Grimm wrote in the South Florida Sun

“A sensational alternate theory blamed serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who was living in Miami in 1981. But in 2008, despite no new evidence, Hollywood police hung the crime on long-dead Ottis Toole.

“The only mystery left unsolved was how any cop could have possibly believed Ottis Toole.”

While Toole was still alive and in state custody, and could have been charged with Adam’s murder on the same information, John Walsh had belittled the

“A lot of people still think Ottis Elwood Toole did it. But he and [his partner] Henry Lee Lucas confessed to a lot of murders they didn’t do. It’s a great ploy for They read about a murder and they’re in solitary. They call the police, desperate to clear a murder, and they say, ‘Fly me there and buy me a pizza,’ and they get out of their cells for two days!”

—South Florida magazine, July 1992

Police had statements from six separate witnesses at the mall who said they saw Dahmer when Adam disappeared, but police couldn’t confirm that Dahmer had been in town then. Then reporter Art Harris, working with ABC Primetime, found a Miami police report with Dahmer’s name dated 20 days before Adam was taken. Still they weren’t interested. But by 2008, both Dahmer and Toole were dead, so did it matter? Although the police’s conclusion was eye-rolling, it seemed harmless.

Grimm was wrong only in that police’s belief in Toole was the only mystery left.

Probably without realizing it, by closing the case police unlatched a door locked nearly 30 years before to a guarded secret.

Inside Harris discovered a much larger convenient fiction, but this one not at all harmless. In looking back it explained everything irregular in the investigation that had followed. As long as the secret was kept, the case could never be truly solved. Harris was then working with The Miami Herald, but even when they confronted them, the chief medical examiner who’d hidden it, the police—and most surprisingly, even the Walshes all turned blind eyes.

What was the never-meant-to-be-seen or spoken-of truth in Adam Walsh’s murder?

Was it that the evidence that the child was Adam was either inconclusive—or sh

Genres: True Crime

809 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Arthur Jay Harris is the author of the investigative true crime books Speed Kills, Flowers for Mrs. Luskin, Until Proven Innocent and the two-book series with a Single Edition, Jeffrey Dahmer's Dirty Secret: The Unsolved Murder of Adam Walsh. He lives in Florida.

For the Adam Walsh case, he has appeared on television many times: ABC Primetime; Anderson Cooper 360; Nancy Grace; Ashleigh Banfield; The Lineup; Inside Edition; Catherine Crier; Cold Blood, and on local TV in Miami and Milwaukee. He has also written stories on the case that have appeared in periodical print in The Miami Herald, Broward-Palm Beach New Times, and Miami Daily Business Review.

In addition, Art has presented on television other crime stories he has investigated at length, including on the shows Snapped; City Confidential; Prison Diaries, Inside Edition, A Current Affair, and Hard Copy.

Reviews

[Michelle Tooker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for any true crime buff! Harris did an extensive amount of research on the case, and after reading this I can't see how anyone other than Dahmer killed little Adam. I also give Harris credit for addressing the flaws in some of the witnesses accounts rather than ignoring those issues or glossing over them. As someone who has read a vast variety of true crime books,I give this one the award for best research (so much so that I can forgive some of the typos I caught).

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really compelling and exhaustive piece of research. I am still not entirely convinced Dahmer killed little Adam Walsh, but I certainly cannot say he didn't. Clearly the author believes he did and is at pains to prove he did. I was very impresed with the research into the suspects, in particular Dahmer's stint with the army in Germany and in his short time in Florida. The profile on him paints him as a weird, loner aggressive/psychopathic character rather than a sad, tragic and sympathetic one later portrayed during the Milwaukee trial. Overall, it's a gripping crime book.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely terrible. The version I read was over 800 pages long, not closer to 300. And most of it was spent drumming up the same circumstantial evidence over and over; evidence that would NEVER convince a jury to convict on the charges Harris levels against Dahmer. His entire argument is that Dahmer lived in Florida and he killed people; maybe a kid. To corroborate, he has 5 or 6 people who came forward at least 10 years after the Walsh kidnap/murder to say they saw a creepy guy that might have been Dahmer at the mall while the abduction took place. The Hollywood PD thinks this is rubbish, and so do I. I can't believe someone would spend so much time "investigating" this.

[Gustavo Linares · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about an unsolved crime. Harris the detective thinks that Dahmer killed little Adam. It all leads to Dahmer killing Adam but it stays a mystery.

[Bruce LeMaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so so...a lot of research, but does it add up to Dahmer being the killer?

[Ann Comes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy!

[Mercedes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book 4 stars because of the editing. I think it was just OCR scanned which sometimes made it difficult to read. As for the story itself, after the first chapter I was convinced Dahmer was responsible for Adam's death. Dahmer has always fascinated me and I never realized his first kill was 1978. No way that man went dormant until 1987 and didn't kill. He killed. He did in Germany and I'm sure he did in Florida ALOT more than just Adam. Dahmer wasn't stupid and he was master manipulator, he only told what he wanted to tell and others he kept close to his heart.
This book has lot of transcript in it and Ottis Toole was never Adam's killer. He was guided to his answers and bullied into them. Plus he just wanted the fame because he had some sick competition with a fellow killer for numbers.
Although I did enjoy this book, I won't read the next two only because law enforcement during this time frame wasn't very good when it came to handling serial killers or child murders. So much was done wrong, lost, or never followed up with.

[Priscilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eerie and too strange to talk about

I read books like this and it really makes me think that there is always more to an incident like Adam Walsh. There are so many mistakes and negligence done that you almost think its on purpose. (The carpet lost is the most insane to me)
I know cameras and DNA won't stop crime, but it will help catch people. I can only hope people cannot get away with these kinda of things.
Really, really, really good book.

[Kimijo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Untold Truth of Adam Walsh uncovers hidden inconsistencies and secrets in the decades-long investigation of Adam Walsh’s murder, challenging the accepted narrative and revealing what authorities may have hoped would remain hidden

[Amy Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of research and a lot of interesting conclusions. I'm not 100% convinced, though.

[Tamatha Baker · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give 0 stars I would have.

I am an avid true crime reader and there was no possible way I could get through these books. I could not even take his theory's serious enough to laugh at them. I could only shake my head and move on. I will say I did not read the entire books, so it can be said I missed some big thing that would have made me understand his theory. However I'm okay with betting it didn't mater how much I read or skipped. So glad I only borrowed this book, its not worth paying for!

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adam Walsh

This book was to complicated for the average reader. I think the author also made decisions of conclusions when no conclusions were there. I believe Adam Walsh is dead but I don't think anyone of the people in this book did the crime. I think there is or was an unknown killer out theatre and this book is what made me think that.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

True crime is not my favorite genre to read but at least keeps me thinking.

[Judi Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow. Can we know the unknowable?

So maybe the head was not Adam's, maybe Ottis Tool was innocent of this murder. In fact, I believe he was. Jeffrey Dahmer? Not so much.

[Thomas A · Rating 3 out of 5]

still very unsolved

800+ pages and all you get is more question marks. All you really get is how bad the cops really screwed things. Really just a waste of time