I have a personal story about this. Shoot me a Cotillion e-mail and remind me to tell you.
princetrumpetsays
May the Walsh family now truly be at peace. What a heartbreaking story. Thank you, John, for your work on behalf of our nation’s peace officers.
Bill Bowensays
Editor:
I was in the parking lot of the Hollywood Mall, about to enter Sears, on the morning in July 1981 when Adam Walsh was taken and later killed. I saw a man throw a child the age of Adam into a blue van, which then hastily drove away. Days later, when I realized that the Hollywood Police department was searching for a young boy, I told that to two Hollywood police officers.
Ten years later, living in Birmingham, Alabama, and reading the Sunday newspaper, I saw a 1981 photo of Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a match for the man I saw driving the blue van. I called the Hollywood police that day, and two days later came to Hollywood to give a statement.
I much later learned that another witness had encountered Dahmer inside the mall that same morning. He too had told that to Hollywood police both in 1981, days after the abduction, and in 1991, quickly after he also saw Dahmer’s photo in the newspaper. Further, in recent years, it was discovered that Dahmer that summer of 1981 had access to a blue van at his place of work, about 15 minutes from Hollywood Mall
Hollywood police has claimed to review its cold case at various times but has never spoken to me again. For them to close the Adam Walsh case and declare Ottis Toole his killer, with no new evidence offered after he’d long been dismissed, is wrong.
I have a personal story about this. Shoot me a Cotillion e-mail and remind me to tell you.
May the Walsh family now truly be at peace. What a heartbreaking story. Thank you, John, for your work on behalf of our nation’s peace officers.
Editor:
I was in the parking lot of the Hollywood Mall, about to enter Sears, on the morning in July 1981 when Adam Walsh was taken and later killed. I saw a man throw a child the age of Adam into a blue van, which then hastily drove away. Days later, when I realized that the Hollywood Police department was searching for a young boy, I told that to two Hollywood police officers.
Ten years later, living in Birmingham, Alabama, and reading the Sunday newspaper, I saw a 1981 photo of Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a match for the man I saw driving the blue van. I called the Hollywood police that day, and two days later came to Hollywood to give a statement.
I much later learned that another witness had encountered Dahmer inside the mall that same morning. He too had told that to Hollywood police both in 1981, days after the abduction, and in 1991, quickly after he also saw Dahmer’s photo in the newspaper. Further, in recent years, it was discovered that Dahmer that summer of 1981 had access to a blue van at his place of work, about 15 minutes from Hollywood Mall
Hollywood police has claimed to review its cold case at various times but has never spoken to me again. For them to close the Adam Walsh case and declare Ottis Toole his killer, with no new evidence offered after he’d long been dismissed, is wrong.
Bill Bowen
Birmingham, Alabama