Tears of Rage - Softcover

Walsh, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067100669X ISBN 13: 9780671006693

Publisher: Pocket, 2003

Synopsis

The host of the America's Most Wanted, John Walsh tells for the first time the full story of the 1981 abduction and murder of his six-year-old son, Adam. This is the heartbreaking chronicle of John Walsh's transformation from grieving father to full-time activist -- and the infuriating conspiracy of events that have kept America's No. 1 crime-fighter from obtaining justice and closure for himself and his family.

From the day Adam disappeared from a mall in Hollywood, Florida, John Walsh faced a local police department better equipped to track stolen cars than missing children -- and a criminal justice system that would work against him in unimaginable ways. Outraged but determined, he ultimately enlarged the search for Adam's killer into an exhaustive battle on behalf of all missing and abused children, beginning with his efforts to put missing children's faces on milk cartons. Today, John Walsh continues the fight for legislative change and public awareness, driven by his own personal tragedy. Tears of Rage is the story of a true American hero: a man who challenged the system in the name of his son.

About this title

About the Author

In addition to his hosting duties on AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, John Walsh is also co-host and co-producer of both "Final Justice" and "European Manhunter." There are also plans to continue his hit television movies "From The Files of AMERICA'S MOST WANTED."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter 4

WHEN I GOT UP AROUND SEVEN O' CLOCK ON THE MORNING OF Monday, July 27, 1981, Adam was still sleeping. Jimmy Campbell had taken him out to a movie the night before, and I was angry that Jimmy had kept him out so late, even if it was summer vacation. I had kissed Adam good-night and put him to bed. If it hadn't been so late, I would have read him a story.

Just a few days before, he had spent the night at Clifford Hofman's house, his first official sleepover away from home. Gram said that he was just getting to the age where he was curious about what I was like as a little boy: what I did, how I acted, and where I went.

That morning over breakfast I skimmed the paper. Bill Casey, the CIA director, was trying to keep from getting fired. An eighty-year-old Dade County woman had been found slashed to death. There was a science story on how surgery was being performed on babies before they were born. Medflies were threatening to take over California. And England was getting ready for the wedding that week of Prince Charles and Lady Di. The weather was typical Florida in July.

Highs in the nineties. Maybe rain. A scorcher.

Adam would always cry whenever I was leaving on a trip without him. But that wasn't going to happen today. Tonight I would be home with him, maybe too late for dinner, but in plenty of time to play with him before bed. Without waking him, I gave him a kiss good-bye.

A couple of hours after I left, Jimmy Campbell stopped by for a cup of coffee. I appreciated the way he spent so much time with Adam and helped out around the house when I was gone. But lately things had been getting on my nerves. I told Revé that I wanted my privacy, needed more one-on-one time with just my family. It was time for Jimmy to stop hanging around our place so much. Time for him to start getting on with his life.

Revé had cleaned out the room that Jimmy slept in when he stayed over and put some of Adam's things in it instead. Later, Jimmy said that the last thing he remembered about leaving the house that morning was the sight of Adam lying on the couch, being cuddled by his mother.

Revé had turned thirty just three days before and was planning on getting her driver's license renewed. But she would have to do another errand first. For the past month or so we had been talking about getting a pair of brass barrel lamps for the living room and had just seen an ad saying they were on sale at Sears. I was bugging her to run over and get them, and when I called the house at around ten o'clock that morning, she said she would do it, but it meant that she was going to be rushed. She was planning on taking a check for Adam's tuition over to St Mark's, then dropping him off at Gram's before she made her one o'clock workout appointment at the gym.

While she made the beds and was cleaning up after breakfast, Adam sat in the den with an orange Popsicle, watching Sesame Street. She gave him his clothes for the day -- green running shorts and a short-sleeved Izod shirt. He put them on, and then his favorite hat, one that I had picked out and given him. It was an off-white captain's hat that was still way too big for him. He loved to wear it pulled all the way down over his ears.

When they left the house a little after eleven, Revé noticed that instead of wearing the shoes she had told him to -- his sneakers -- Adam had slipped on the yellow flip-flops that we called his "slaps."

Since I wasn't actually there, it's probably best that Revé and Gram tell about what happened next. This is what Revé remembers:

The first thing we did was to swing by St. Mark's. I took Adam with me into the school office where a lady was sitting at the desk, talking on the phone. It didn't look like she was going to be hanging up anytime soon, so after a few minutes of waiting, I laid the tuition check on her desk, turned around, and left.

After that, we drove over to the mall, which was about a mile away. I parked where I always did, on the north side near the receiving dock. I held Adam's hand, as usual, while we walked across the parking lot to the entrance. We went into the store the same as always, past Receiving and the catalog desk on the left. That put us in the middle of the toy department. Beyond it, way over on the right, was the garden section, where all the pesticides and poisons were kept on the shelves. It always made me mad that they would keep those chemicals right next to the toys. "Great," I said to myself whenever I passed it.

Right in the middle of the toy department was the big attraction: a television monitor displaying computer video games. Still a big novelty factor. They were brand-new back then.

I don't remember what the game was. Maybe Star Wars or Pong. All I remember is that I was in a hurry, and the lamp department was on the other side of toys, just around the corner at the end of the aisle to the left. From the video game to the main counter in the lamp department was about seventy-five feet. Out of the line of sight. But not very far.

It was summer vacation and kids used to go back and forth between the mall and the park next door. Some of them were standing at the game, playing with the joystick, and Adam asked if he could stay and play, too.

That was our ritual: Going in the north door, by Receiving. And Adam begging me to let him play the video game.

I pointed to where I was going to be. "Okay. I'm going to the lamp department for a minute. Right over there. You stay here and I'll be right over there." I don't think I specifically said, "Don't go anywhere," because I never had to. Adam didn't wander off. He didn't go anywhere. He just wanted to stay with the other kids and play that damned game.

When I got back, we would go get him an ice cream.

"I'm going to be right over there. In the lamp department, Adam."

And he said, "Okay, Mommy. I know where that is."

I went into Lamps and asked a saleslady if she could get the brass barrel ones for me because I couldn't find them anywhere on the floor. Then I waited while she went into the back. There may have been one other woman in the department, but I didn't speak to her. Finally the saleslady came back out and told me they didn't have the lamps in stock. They would have to be ordered, but I didn't have time. I left my name and asked to have someone call me when the lamps came in.

That was it. I was going to pick up Adam at the video game and swing back out the way we had come in.

I was gone a few minutes. Five. Maybe ten altogether.

But when I came around the corner, I didn't see Adam.

At first, I thought that maybe he had walked over to one of the other aisles. I called out his name, but he didn't answer. And then I started getting a strange feeling. Something odd. Almost eerie. It wasn't just that I didn't see Adam. It was that it seemed as if everyone had suddenly gone away. Just a minute ago there had been a bunch of kids around, jostling. Now even the video game wasn't making any noise. Everything seemed so suddenly silent. The first thought in my head was, "Hey, where did everybody go?"

I went up and down the aisles. It wasn't a big department, but I couldn't find Adam. And then I noticed a little boy with dark hair, wearing a captain's hat. A less expensive-looking, knock-off version of the one that Adam had on.

I went up to him and said, "Did you see a little boy wearing a hat like yours?"

He nodded, and I thought to myself, "Whew. Okay."

"So where is he?"

But the little boy didn't say anything. He just pointed to the door. Not the north door that we always went in and out of but the west door over on the far side of Toys. It was then that I realized that he must be Spanish. Or at least that he didn't understand English very well.

Because it was ridiculous to think that Adam would have gone out the west door. We never did that. I even didn't bother to ask the little boy anything else -- where Adam was, or why everyone had gone. There was no reason to. This little kid was probably just trying to be polite to a grownup. I just assumed that he didn't understand what I'd said.

I went back into Toys and found a clerk. "Have you seen my son? He was here just a minute ago." She said that she hadn't.

So I started asking people, anyone I could find. But they all said the same thing. "Oh, well, he probably just wandered off."

"I'll bet he went looking for you."

"He could be in the mall."

"He might be there."

"Have you tried over that way?"

I kept saying, "You don't understand. My son is a little boy who does not wander off."

And all the while, a horrible, cold fear was building. I knew something was wrong. Really wrong. I was absolutely convinced of it.

But no one seemed to understand or believe me.

"Oh, well, you know how kids are. Maybe he wandered off with the rest of the kids He's gotta be around here someplace."

I kept saying, "No. My son would not do that. You don't understand. Something is wrong here but I'm not exactly sure what."

Cash registers kept ringing up sales. Clerks kept waiting on people as if nothing had happened. I was trying to think of the words to make them see that something was really out of whack. That something was going on that just wasn't right. I couldn't just go up to the counter and say, "I have a missing child," because in those days there was no such thing.

Copyright © 1997 by John Walsh

Edition details

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067100669X
• ISBN 13: 9780671006693
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 432