The Legacy of Adam Walsh

Adam Walsh, the little six-year-old boy who severed head was found in a Florida canal 120 miles from where he disappeared in 1981, can finally rest in peace. Today the LA Times report that police in that state announced that they had identified his killer as Ottis Toole, a serial killer who died in prison more than 10 years ago. Toole had been the lead suspect in the boy's death for years, but the police investigation was horribly botched such that indisputable evidence could not be found. Toole had confessed to the killing twice, then later recanted. Apparently he'd confessed to literally hundreds of murders, most of which were fake. But his niece told authorities that he confessed on his deathbed.

The Walsh family held a press conference today when the news was announced. Adam's father, John Walsh, is the iconic host of America's Most Wanted, which has led to the arrest and conviction of the country's most notorious criminals. His unflagging activism on behalf of Adam and other victims of crime changed forever the way the country monitors missing children. Databases, a national center, and telephone lines were created for people to report missing children. The most recent improvement in that system has been the Amber Alert system, which posts data about missing children on freeway signs and TV news programs.

The LA Times story added this at the end:

What it also did, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, is make children and adults alike exponentially more afraid."

[John Walsh] ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children," Moran said.

Maybe Mr. Moran is not a parent of young kids today, but this was an extremely ignorant statement.