Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Adam Walsh (Preview)

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

In 1981 a young boy named Adam was abducted by a stranger from a shopping plaza. It would take almost three decades to bring closure to his family but in that time Adam’s legacy would forever change the way America views and handles missing children cases. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. To join the fan club and listen to this entire episode visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/patreon-fan-club/   Sources for this full episode will be listed in the show notes in the fan club app.   

Hi crime junkies, this is Ashley flowers if you listened all the way to the end of our episode, which I know some of you don't do You'll know that we're taking this week off for Labor Day spending some time with our families However, we never take off in the fan club when a fan club episode is due and today a fan club episode was due So if you need your fix if you can't get enough true crime I'm gonna play a clip of the episode that we have available right now. Just go to our website crime junkie Podcast comm and click the fan club link to learn how to sign up You can get this episode for $5 and when you sign up for $5 you also get the entire backlog of fan club content as well That's over 36 episodes. You can binge for $5. It's a little crazy

But if you just want a little taste of true crime, enjoy this little teaser It Was around 12 15 on July 27th 1981 when Reve Walsh was making her way from the lamp Islet Sears to a video game display station to get her son They had gone there to get some very specific lamps that her husband John told her on sale But the store didn't end up having any in stock So the trip was kind of a bust when they had come in Adam was begging to play the game I mean like what six-year-old kid wants to just look at lamps

So Reve had left him there with a group of kids But when she rounded the corner when she was coming back from the lamp section The game station was totally empty and I have to imagine at first her thought wasn't like immediate panic She was gone five ten maybe 15 minutes tops Like he probably went looking for her and Reve even said in an interview with abc That the last thing she said to Adam when she left him was I'm going to the lamp section and he says okay mommy I know where that is. So, you know my logical thinking is that she was probably thinking like oh He went to look for me somehow. We missed each other. Yeah, just like past each other in the aisles or whatever

Yeah, so she began to search up one aisle down another No, Adam up another aisle no Adam Like is it possible? They're just missing each other Yeah, like they're just missing each other again. Like she's in the lamps when he's at the games He's at the lamps when she's at the games. It's just right. It just happens. I get it right So eventually Reve asked the store clerk to page Adam overhead They asked him to meet his mother in the toy section Which is where like the games would have been when Reve walks back there

She sees someone she knows and I I imagine it's just like relief that washes over her because it's her mother-in-law She must have Adam Now they didn't come together and neither of them knew that the other was planning to be there But surely Adam had found her and this is the only explanation But Adam's grandmother was just as confused as Reve. She tells her no like he's not with me The two wait in the toy aisle for what feels like an eternity and still Adam does not appear Eventually what's happening becomes clear to everyone Someone calls John who rushes to the scene to be with Reve and by 155 the police are called

All the store clerks who are working are questioned, but impossibly no one says that they saw Adam at any point There was an incident that the store manager mentioned to Reve though She said that a group of boys had gotten in a fight over the game And whose turn it was to play or like who had controlled the joystick or whatever And the security guard had kicked like this group of boys out The problem though is that when they showed the security guard who was this young female guard who just started on the job They show her a picture of Adam. She says that she doesn't recognize him as one of the boys She told to leave the store. Okay, but if he actually had been kicked out of the store that would make sense

Right like why he wouldn't be responding to the overhead pages Right and to top it off the kids that all got kicked out were sent out of the store's west entrance Which isn't the same one that Reve and Adam had come in So when they went to go look for him outside, I'm sure Reve was even worried because she's like You know, he would have had no idea where he was And she said in her husband's book tears of rage that Adam was super shy and probably wouldn't have told the lady The security guard lady that he didn't know where he was or that he wasn't with those boys And his mom was still inside like he would have just kept quiet and gone outside to the sidewalk

So now their biggest fear isn't that Adam is wandering the store But that he was maybe one of those boys put out of the store despite what the guard told them And now he might be wandering outside lost and alone As afternoon turns to evening It becomes more and more clear to both John and Reve that something worse could have happened And when that horrible day turns into two turns into three and then four Everyone is sure wherever Adam is whoever he's with He isn't able to get home on his own in the time right after Adam went missing

John took point for the family and he was the one in front of cameras trying to get on Every single news station making sure that Adam's picture was spread far and wide They had no idea where he could be at this point or how far from home He was but in those first few days police weren't super concerned with far and wide Police thought that the answers to Adam's whereabouts were much closer to home Because you see when they did their initial interviews of the family and those closest to them The lead investigator uncovered a secret that he thought was the key to solving the case If you'd like to hear the rest of this episode you can by going to our website crime junkie

podcast.com and joining our fan club for just five dollars you get this episode about Adam Walsh But you also get over 30 other episodes right away all for just five dollars and as a part of the fan club I don't know if a lot of people know this but every week you get our regular episodes a day early and add free And if that's all not enough our merch store will be opening again really soon and fan club members always get first access to shop So if you've been around a while you'll know that the fan club always cleans us out of stock Before it even opens to the general public and we have some super cool stuff coming So I hope to see you in the fan club and if not I will catch you next week Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think chuck? Do you approve?