Adam Walsh was a six-year-old American child who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981. His mother left him playing in the toy department for a moment, but when she returned, he was missing. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Highway 60 / Yeehaw Junction in rural Indian River County, Florida. His body was never recovered. The case went unsolved for many years due to procedural mistakes made early on in 1981, and investigators lost several major pieces of evidence. The suspect, Ottis Toole, had twice confessed to killing the child, but later recanted. He claimed responsibility for hundreds of murders, but police determined most of the confessions were lies. In 2008, the Hollywood Police Department announced the case closed and named Toole the killer. Toole had died 12 years earlier, in prison for another crime. No new evidence had come to light, and police were satisfied that Toole was the killer. Adams murder led his father, John Walsh, on a lifelong mission to prevent similar attacks on other kids. He became a leading victims rights activist and host of the long-running television show Americas Most Wanted. The Walsh family started an organization, which we now know as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. With help from the organization, Congress also passed several acts changing the way we think, investigate and report missing childrens issues.