Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [111]
“That’s why I’m here today,” Matthews told Scarberry. He’d been asked by John and Revé Walsh to reopen the case and to conduct a complete, independent investigation to prove once and for all who had kidnapped and murdered their son. And Matthews—who was doing this as a favor to people he cared about, and for the sake of justice—was asking for Scarberry’s help. The files had been opened to every reporter under the sun ten years ago, Matthews pointed out, though the motivations of those who wanted them opened were somewhat dubious and their abilities to evaluate what they were looking at just as questionable.
Matthews was an experienced investigator with a single aim in mind: to reexamine files and statements, reevaluate evidence, and reinterview witnesses, and, where new leads presented themselves, to follow them wherever they might go. As Scarberry well knew, Matthews had solved any number of cases thought to be unsolvable before. Surely, said Matthews—who had not come to take no for an answer—it was time to give him his final shot. John and Revé and Adam Walsh deserved that much, at least.
Scarberry heard Matthews out, then sat back in his chair, considering things. He glanced away for a moment, then turned back to Matthews and gave his okay. If Matthews thought he could manage to prove anything after all these years, who was Scarberry or his department to stand in the way?
He would have access to everything in the department’s files, Scarberry told him. And he further assured Matthews that now-captain Mark Smith, the detective who had opened the cold case investigation with Matthews back in 1995, would provide whatever help he could. Godspeed and good luck.
The promise of “help” from Mark Smith was a favor that Matthews could have just as well done without, he thought, but at least this time there was no selective withholding of files.
The transfer of all case file documentation, including myriad reports, statements, memos, photos, and interviews—including those filmed and on CD—began the following day, February 22, 2006. Day after day, Matthews (convinced by their disarray that he was the first to do so) combed through the voluminous files, refreshing himself on details, cataloging crucial information and evidence, building for the first time a comprehensive chronology of events and identifying key witnesses who had never been interviewed, or who were never asked the necessary questions in the first place.
On Thursday, February 23, Matthews—backed by a film crew AMW’s Lance Heflin had been happy to provide for the purposes of documentation—interviewed retired Hollywood detective Larry Hoisington regarding the things Ottis Toole had told him on October 21, 1981, when Hoisington had been the driver for the team taking Toole around to the various scenes connected to the crime. Hoisington told Matthews that on that day, while Hoffman and others were busy with other things, Toole had given him a complete and independent confession to the crime, the gruesome details of which he recounted for Matthews. Hoisington also recounted Hoffman’s treatment of Toole and repeated what he’d told Leroy Hessler year before: “I’m surprised Toole cooperated at all.”
Hoisington reiterated his conversation with Deputy Chief Hessler at the time and recounted Hessler’s response that Hoisington simply tell Hoffman about it. Matthews pointed to the files, shaking his head. Despite Hoffman’s assurances that he would include what Hoisington told him in his report, no such mention of Toole’s confession to Hoisington existed there.
On Saturday, February 25, Matthews interviewed Arlene Mayer, who had identified Ottis Toole as the man who accosted her and her daughter Heidi at a Hollywood Kmart store two days prior to Adam’s abduction. They both recalled the incident vividly and confirmed that they had identified Toole from a lineup of photographs shown them by Hollywood police. For all the good it did, Matthews thought. Had