Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [108]
And in 1999, as if following the statistical mandate that more than half of the couples who lose a child to tragedy will split up (some studies have put the figure as high as 80 percent), Revé filed for divorce from John. However, there were three children still at home at the time—Meghan, then seventeen, Callahan, fifteen, and Hayden, fourteen—and four months later, Revé rescinded her petition. Eventually the couple smoothed over their difficulties and resumed a united place at the forefront of efforts on behalf of missing and exploited children.
As for Joe Matthews, his days following his retirement from Miami Beach PD remained full as well. He joined the faculty of the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University in the 1980s and he continued on there, lecturing on investigative interviewing and clinical polygraph. He also traveled extensively about the United States speaking at universities, police departments, and corporations on behalf of DNA LifePrint, a company formed to offer child safety programs and distribution of an inexpensive home DNA identification kit developed as a result of the difficulty he encountered in identifying “Baby Lollipops.” And while he had stepped away from his interest in polygraph services and instruction, he continued as an investigative consultant to law enforcement agencies and the private sector across the United States and in Canada.
In 1999, when John Walsh asked if he might be interested in doing some investigative work for a new “cold case” component for America’s Most Wanted, Matthews—a detective through and through—jumped at the opportunity. The producers expected that Matthews might present evidence pertaining to various cold cases and let the audience theorize for themselves what might have actually happened, but Matthews took one look at the known elements of the first case suggested to him, one involving the year-old death of a former high school wrestling champion in eastern Pennsylvania, and decided he could do better than what was proposed. After nearly two years of digging, he unearthed evidence proving the involvement of four drug-dealing University of Lock Haven football players in the killing. Having solved the first cold case investigation in the show’s history, Matthews secured his career as an on-screen investigator.
From time to time during their association, both Matthews and Walsh would reflect on the one case that had baffled authorities and galled them both, and they each vowed on more than one occasion that one day they would see justice served. In fact, from the time of the airing of the first AMW show on Adam in 1996, Matthews had followed up every tip concerning the case submitted to the program, calls that came on the average of two or three a month. The former homicide detective traveled around Florida and as far away as the prisons of Colorado and California in search of viable leads, but nothing panned out.
And Matthews admits that if it hadn’t been for the boorish reporter who buttonholed John Walsh in January 2006, just a few months before the signing of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, things might have stayed that way forever.
When Joe Matthews got the call from John Walsh to let him know he was coming to South Florida for an AMW shoot in early February 2006 and would like to get together, the detective didn’t think too much about it. Matthews was still working regularly as an investigator for the show and simply assumed that Walsh wanted to run an idea for some new investigation past him.
Even when Walsh added that Revé would be with him and that they wanted to talk to him about an important matter, it still didn’t register. Most of the time John traveled by himself for the shoots, but since this one was in South Florida, it made sense that Revé would come along, and Matthews, who enjoyed her company, was happy to hear it. Walsh suggested that they meet at the Atlantic Hotel on Ocean Drive in Fort Lauderdale, where the crew would be set up, and Matthews