The severed head found 120 miles away — and the confession police never fully believed

The television set was on.

On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh sat with other children in front of it, inside the Sears store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida.

His mother, Revé Walsh, was shopping nearby.

When she went to collect him, he was gone.

The store's television set — an ordinary object, the kind of thing any family might own — becomes the last place Adam was seen before he vanished.

What was on the screen is not in the record.

How many children were in the room is not in the record.

No witness list from that room appears in the source material.

She was shopping nearby.

He was watching a screen with other children.

Then he was gone.

The mall was public.

The store was open.

The television was on.

What happened in that store?

Who else was in that room?

What did the other children see?

That would require evidence.

The record does not establish what was on the television.

The record does not establish the exact number of children present.

What the record does establish is a mother's errand and a child's ordinary afternoon.

An ordinary afternoon, in a public place, with a screen glowing in the corner.

Then nothing.

THE SEARCH AND THE CANAL

The search began that same day.

Police interviewed witnesses at the Sears store and the mall. They spoke to employees. They spoke to other shoppers.

Early on, they considered several suspects. One was a man seen leaving the store with a young boy. His identity was never confirmed.

The days turned to weeks. The weeks turned to months.

On October 10, 1981, a severed head was found in a drainage canal along Florida's Turnpike near Vero Beach. It was about 120 miles from the mall.

It was Adam's.

His body was never recovered.

The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be homicide. The exact cause could not be established. The condition of the remains did not allow it.

What the record shows is a head without a body. A family without a grave to visit.

The man seen leaving the store with a young boy — the record does not establish who he was. The exact cause of death — the record does not establish that either.

The search continued. But there was nothing left to find.

THE CONFESSION AND THE RECANTATION

In 1983, Ottis Toole was already in prison in Florida for other crimes.

He confessed to killing Adam Walsh.