Bringing Adam Home - Les Standiford [98]
Walsh assured Smith that he had no idea what he was talking about, and Smith finally explained. An FDLE team had dug up the items on Ottis Toole’s property in Jacksonville, Smith told him. The shorts and a child’s yellow flip-flop had been sent to Hollywood PD, where they’d been in the evidence room ever since.
Walsh, as might be expected, went ballistic at the news. The “Missing” posters that were issued in the wake of Adam’s disappearance had described him as wearing green shorts and yellow flip-flops. Now Smith was saying that the detective in charge of the case had discovered such items on the property of the only serious suspect who had ever been identified and had not called him in to see if they belonged to Adam? How could such behavior be explained?
Smith, obviously, could not explain it, but he did arrange a meeting at which the Walshes could view the items. It took nearly a month, but finally, on January 16, 1996, John and Revé Walsh met with Detective Smith and Chief Witt in a conference room at Hollywood PD. Chief Witt began the meeting with a long-winded preamble in which he proclaimed the untiring efforts of his department to solve the case. No effort had been spared, the chief said, no tip had been ignored. Finally, he paused, holding up a large evidence envelope, and gave Revé a glance meant to be solicitous.
“Would you and John like to take a minute?” he asked.
Revé stared back, doubfounded. Good lord, she thought—they’d already been kept waiting for fifteen years.
“Just show us what you’ve got,” John said.
Witt seemed taken aback by Walsh’s tone, but he broke off to open up the envelope with a flourish. Revé took one look at the muddy shorts and the tiny shoe that was barely bigger than one an infant might wear and shook her head quickly. No way had these items come from Adam. “They’re not his,” she told John.
The collective disappointment in the room was palpable. Once again, it seemed, Ottis Toole had slipped from a snare.
Despite the letdown, Detective Smith did his best to put a positive spin on matters for the Walshes. He and Sergeant Matthews had made very real progress on the cold case investigation, he insisted. He mentioned the fact that Sears security guard Kathy Shaffer had finally admitted sending Adam outside the store through the door where Toole claimed he’d picked the child up. And he also pointed to the significance of the fact that when Toole made his first confession, no news report had mentioned the site near mile marker 126 where Toole later took detectives. As further corroboration that he knew details that had never been reported in the press, Toole had spoken several times of driving no more than ten minutes farther north on the turnpike before disposing of the head in the canal. As Smith pointed out, the spot where fishermen had discovered the remains was four miles north, at mile marker 130—ten minutes was just how long it would take to turn around on that deserted service road, make your way back to the turnpike, and drive to the spot where Adam’s head had been found.
Smith then turned his attention to Witt. All these details that Toole had dropped into his multiple confessions were unknown to anyone outside the circle of law enforcement. If they were divulged publicly, however, that evidence would become readily available to any deranged soul who wanted to claim responsibility for the crime. Anyone could say, “Actually it was me who pulled off there at mile marker 130 and tossed that head in the canal.” Surely, Smith said, Witt understood the importance of standing up against the request to open the files.
Witt nodded, tenting his fingers thoughtfully. “I suppose you could look it that way,” he said, “but I think it is just as likely that opening up the case files would put pressure on Toole to break down and confess.”
Though no one in the room had the temerity to point out that Toole had already broken down and confessed on several occasions, one thing seemed clear: even though no ruling on the matter