Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [113]
The fact is that one person, and one person only, was responsible for what had happened to Adam. One person had taken that little boy and done unspeakable things to him, and Matthews was going to prove who that person was, because, quite frankly, that is the only way he knew how to give meaning to his life.
On Tuesday, March 14, Matthews met with Barry Gemelli, the former health service administrator at the Union Correctional Institution. Gemelli, himself suffering from advanced leukemia, recounted the details of the confession he heard from Toole just before he died, and confirmed that he had followed up with the criminal investigation unit at the facility both verbally and with a follow-up written report. Gemelli told Matthews that Toole seemed well aware that he was dying. He was sad and scared, and there seemed to Gemelli no reason on earth for the man to be lying. He had done something particularly terrible, and he wanted to get it off his chest. As far as Matthews was concerned, Gemelli was only underscoring what Toole had told officers when he originally confessed in 1983: “It was the youngest person I ever killed and I feel bad about it.” Even ghouls sometimes feel a pang of conscience, he thought.
And then, on the following day, Wednesday, March 15, Matthews conducted an interview that would cast new light on a matter that had seemed to color Ottis Toole’s confessions so profoundly. Despite the fact that Toole had divulged details of the crime that only Hoffman and his fellow detectives could have known at the time, including the place where he had disposed of Adam’s head, Hoffman had stuck to his accusations that Detective Buddy Terry had struck a book deal with Toole and was feeding him privileged information.
However, in the course of going back through Toole’s movements in Jacksonville, prior to and just after the time of the crime, Matthews had occasion to speak with John Reaves Jr., son of the owner of Reaves Roofing at the time. Yes, he’d verified all those dates pertaining to Ottis Toole’s work history at the company, Reaves told Matthews. And he also confirmed that his aunt Faye McNett had sold Toole the Cadillac, later repossessing it when Toole couldn’t keep up the payments. For a time, though, Toole had used it as his work vehicle, and usually kept it full of rakes and shovels and other gardening-type tools. Toole didn’t like heights, Reaves explained, so he was always doing cleanup and other such work around the job sites.
Maybe he didn’t like to climb because of his eyes, Reaves theorized. Toole would be looking at you and suddenly one eye would go floating in another direction, Reaves said, accounting for the odd-looking expression that other witnesses had noted.
All that was interesting enough, but it wasn’t until Matthews asked the obvious question that Reaves dropped his own bombshell. Did he have any knowledge of Toole’s involvement in the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh? Matthews wanted to know.
Actually, he did, Reaves responded. In fact, Toole had admitted the whole thing to him in great detail, during a visit they’d had in the Duval County Jail. Ottis had told him he’d taken the kid from a store, though he didn’t mention Sears. It was down around Miami, somewhere, Reaves remembered Ottis saying, and that while he was driving them back to Jacksonville, the kid wouldn’t stop crying. Ottis hit him hard in the stomach, and when the kid starting gasping for air, Ottis said he put his hands around his neck and choked him until he was dead. Then Ottis said he cut his head off and threw it, or the body, into a canal. There was a lot of blood in the Cadillac as a result, Ottis told him.
And why was it that Reaves had not told detectives this back in 1983 when they questioned him? Matthews asked. Well, because they never asked, Reaves replied. He and Ottis had their conversation about the killing a few days after the detectives had called about the dates of Toole’s employment, Reaves said, and he’d just never seen the point of calling the cops