Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [78]
Matthews was placed in charge of the charged investigation, while an outraged community demanded justice, if not ultimately a lynching. From the outset, however, Matthews spotted various minor inconsistencies in Reichmann’s story, and following forty to fifty hours of interviews and his usual persistent digging, Matthews discovered that Reichmann had taken out $2 million in German insurance policies on his girlfriend’s life. It was fuel for a reconsideration of everything, and eventually Matthews had assembled a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence implicating Reichmann as the killer.
However, Janet Reno, Dade County state attorney at the time, advised Matthews that she deemed his evidence insufficient for the issuance of a warrant. Though Reichmann was arrested and tried on a federal weapons charge, he was found not guilty. He was ordered to be released from custody and allowed to return to his native country. As Matthews was escorting Reichmann to the property room to reclaim his personal effects, including a number of items that Matthews considered potential evidence in his murder investigation, the grinning German turned to tap him on the cheek with his palm. “Ah, my friend Matthews,” Reichmann said in condescension, “you’ll have to try harder next time, eh?”
At which point Matthews responded by pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt and snapping them onto Reichmann’s wrists. “Ah my friend Reichmann,” Matthews said. “You are under arrest for first-degree murder.”
Matthews’s actions astounded Reichmann, of course, and they infuriated Janet Reno as well, for she wanted no part of a case that she considered dicey. Fortunately for Matthews and for the legal system, however, several on Reno’s staff were convinced that Reichmann was guilty, and the case was prosecuted vigorously.
Ultimately, Reichmann was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death—even though the perpetrator had never confessed, the firearm used was never recovered, no witnesses ever appeared, and the exact location of the murder was never determined. The Florida Supreme Court reviewed Reichmann’s case twice, but upheld the conviction. No wonder, then, that with no apparent leads, his superiors wanted Matthews on the case of the three-year-old discarded under a hedge off North Bay Road like so much garbage.
But even Matthews was having difficulties with this new case. No one had seen anything, and without an identification of the victim, it was difficult even to know where to begin an investigation. During a canvasing of the neighborhood where the child was discovered, he found himself talking to a little girl who knew very little about the crime save that it had terrified her and that the little boy had been found wearing only a T-shirt with lollipops printed on it.
“Poor baby Lollipops,” the little girl told Matthews. “I hope you catch who did it.”
He hoped he’d catch who killed “Baby Lollipops” too, Matthews told the little girl, and even if he had little by way of leads, he now had a name that seemed to galvanize the interest of the public in the case. On Monday, November 26, 1990, almost two weeks after Adam’s sixteenth birthday, Joe Matthews called the producers of the television show America’s Most Wanted, asking how he might get details of the “Baby Lollipops” case aired, in order to help identify the child.
Matthews was well aware that John Walsh was the host of the program, the brainchild of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Television Network. The show had begun its run in February 1988, the second piece of original programming produced by the network after 21 Jump Street, which starred a then-unknown actor named Johnny Depp. America’s Most Wanted was devoted to the