Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [68]
Only three days after that sensational story appeared, on May 24, 1984, the FDLE returned the principal piece of evidence in the case—Toole’s Cadillac—to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. There had been no word from Hoffman or the Hollywood PD in the wake of Toole’s sordid public confession, and with no hold placed on the car as evidence, it was subsequently sold by the sheriff’s office to a used car dealer. A St. Augustine resident named Sirree Safwat bought the vehicle, despite his complaint that it lacked carpeting on the floorboards and trunk. Less than a year later, after the car began to exhibit serious engine problems, Safwat said, he sold it to a junk dealer as scrap for $50.
On October 18, 1984, Detective Hoffman granted an interview with the Florida Today newspaper in Cocoa. In it, he told the reporter unequivocally that Ottis Toole was no longer considered a suspect in the murder of Adam Walsh. “He was a suspect until we were able to put holes in his story,” Hoffman told a reporter, though he did not say what those “holes” were. “His confession only vaguely matched” the actual details of the killing, Hoffman claimed. An aide to Broward County state attorney Michael Satz said that his office concurred, though he also made it clear that the call was entirely Hoffman’s: “Hollywood police apparently saw fit to say that Toole is no longer suspected and we’re just agreeing,” press aide Dave Casey offered.
When Buddy Terry heard the news, he was not surprised. As far as he could tell, Hoffman had never really taken Toole seriously. He believed that Hoffman had missed an opportunity to nail Toole for the Walsh murder, but at least Toole was in prison, Terry thought, and facing execution. Clearly, he would have to put the rest out of his mind.
Which he might have done, were it not for the astounding news that Terry soon was to receive from his superiors. Hoffman, it seemed, was not quite finished with Ottis Toole and the Adam Walsh case, after all. He had filed a complaint with Duval County authorities that Terry had supplied Toole with case file information that Toole used to concoct his confession. Terry had done this, Hoffman alleged, because the Jacksonville detective and Toole had formed a secret agreement to write a book based on Toole’s sensational confession.
Terry, who hadn’t even heard of Adam Walsh the first time he overheard Toole confessing the crime to Brevard County detective Steve Kendrick, was dumbfounded by Hoffman’s allegations. Still, while the matter was investigated, he was to be transferred out of the robbery and homicide unit where he had served as a detective for more than twelve years, back to the uniform patrol division, assigned to the graveyard for wayward detectives, otherwise known as the Communications Center.
Chapter Five
As Evil Does
Q: Tell me about some of the weapons you’ve used to kill your victims.
A: I’ve used jack handles, two by fours, shovels, axes. Run them over with a car. Strangled them with stockings, skip ropes, phone cords. You name it.
Q: And shot them?
A: Oh yeah, shot ’em. Sure. In the head. In the chest. In the back. In the stomach.
Q: And sometimes in the top of the head . . .
A: . . . sometimes, if somebody’s been going down on you. You have to be careful there, though.
Q: And this is with a handgun?
A: Usually. A .22, a .25, a .357 magnum. But sometimes a shotgun. And I’ve used a rifle, too.
Q: Is there any weapon you never used?
A: I never used an ice pick. That would have been good, though. I wish I would have used an ice pick, just once.
—Ottis Toole to Texas Rangers,
March 24, 1984
Hollywood, Florida—November 14, 1984
Given the train wreck that the investigation of Ottis Toole had become, the November Wednesday that would have marked the celebration of