No Wonder

Last night I finished reading 'Bringing Adam Home'.  It is the story of the twenty-seven year search for the killer of six-year old Adam Walsh.  NO, that is not a misprint.  27 years.  Twenty-five years after Ottis Toole first confessed to the Hollywood, Florida police that he did it. 

The book was very difficult for me to read.  Several times I had to close it up and move on to something else.  Joyce Carol Oates put it best on the back cover when she referred to 'police incompetence'.  Utterly unbelievable.  I wanted to go to Florida and slap Detective Hoffman up side the head, if he is still around.

Les Standiford, the author, makes the point that the wrong detective was assigned and there was lack of supervision.  Not an excuse.  I kept wondering how this guy got to be a detective or even on the police force.

It is this kind of individual (Hoffman) that makes people think public servants are over-paid and lazy.  And his successors on the case were not much better, nor the FBI agent involved, or a succession of Police Chiefs. 

Not until Det. Sgt. Matthews was asked by John and Reve Walsh to personally go over all of the materials to see if he could put an end to the search was it finally concluded that Toole was the killer.

What angered me most about reading this was that Reve Walsh, Adam's mother, was given not one, but two, polygraphs.  Ottis Toole?  Not a single one!!!  And the guy confessed on multiple occasions, but good old Det. Hoffman just didn't think he did it. 

If you like non-fiction, I suggest you pick up the book and give it a read.  And when you do, remember that not all public servants are like the detective assigned to the Adam Walsh case.  The great majority are good and hard-working public servants.  Unfortunately, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch, or at least the public perception of the bunch.  It's too bad.