Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [60]
Toole had already complained to detectives Kendrick from Brevard County and Via from Louisiana that he didn’t like the way that Hoffman treated him. Hoffman had called him a “retard” and an “asshole” on several occasions the day they were out there by Florida’s Turnpike looking for the body, Toole said, and that “really pissed him off.”
“I know I’m an asshole,” Toole told Kendrick earlier. “And I am a retard.” But if the Hollywood cops thought they were so smart, then let them go find Adam’s body themselves, that’s what he’d decided.
Thus, it is not difficult to imagine what Toole thought of the three Hollywood cops glowering at him from the hallway. Hoffman would later note in his log that Toole seemed quite upset, in fact.
“You want me to go on national TV and state that I killed Adam Walsh?” Toole called angrily to Hoffman. But despite the fact that he had no other leads in the case of a lifetime, Hoffman apparently felt he’d already been sufficiently played the fool by Ottis Toole. He simply shrugged and led the other officers away down the hall.
That day, Hoffman looked at medical records supplied by jailors that indicated that since his arrival, Toole had been receiving 50 milligrams of Benadryl at bedtime, presumably to help him fall asleep, along with regular dosages of Meladril, an herbal supplement sometimes used in the treatment of herpes. Though medical records showed that he had been diagnosed as having suffered convulsions from grand mal epilepsy some fifteen years previously, Toole was taking no epilepsy medication at Duval County. Little of import there, it seemed.
On the following day, Hoffman interviewed Toole’s stepfather, Robert Harley, who told the detective that he had married Toole’s mother Sarah in 1957, when Toole was ten. He told Hoffman of the thefts that occurred from his home after Toole’s mother died and of his suspicions that Toole and Henry Lee Lucas were responsible for those, as well as for the fire that destroyed the house on June 23, 1981.
At the same time, other detectives from Hollywood were at the Lake Butler facility, interviewing James Redwine, Betty Goodyear’s troubled son, who had fallen in with Toole after his return to Jacksonville from a treatment center in Miami. Redwine, serving time for arsons he committed along with Toole, said that while Toole often acted meek and timid, he could fly into rages, especially if he had a weapon available.
Redwine described a few such incidents for the detectives and also confirmed that he had seen Toole in possession of a large knife with a brown wooden handle. However, Redwine said, he was not going to submit to a sworn statement about any of this. He did not want to get involved in the investigation, period.
On Saturday, Hoffman and his cohorts, Smith and Standley, were back in the homicide unit at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Once again, Toole spotted him passing the open interview room and called out after him. Hoffman ignored Toole, but Buddy Terry caught up with him and explained that Toole was being insistent. “Just go see what he wants,” Terry urged.
Hoffman may not have cared what Ottis Toole wanted, but he was on Terry’s turf and needed some element of cooperation if he was going to accomplish anything in Jacksonville. Thus, he walked into the interview room and informed Toole brusquely that he, Toole, was being represented by public defender Elton Schwartz and that Schwartz did not want Toole talking to any investigators without his attorney present.
To Toole, none of it mattered. “I do not want to be represented by anyone,” he told Hoffman. “I want to speak to you about Adam Walsh, and I do not want to be represented by any attorney.”
Hoffman glanced about the room, where any number of fellow law officers stood watching, waiting for his call. Certainly, Toole seemed well aware of his rights, and this was anything but a coercive situation, as cops