The recovered remains were positively identified as those of Adam Walsh shortly after the Walshes' Good Morning America appearance, and the confirmation made national news headlines. On the program, the Walshes said that they were still clinging to hope that their son was alive a $100,000 reward had been posted for his safe return. On the morning of August 11, as Hollywood, Florida police rushed dental records to Vero Beach to compare them to the found remains, John and Revé Walsh appeared on the national news program Good Morning America. The Florida Highway Patrol was informed of the discovery at 7:30 pm on August 10. It was discovered by two fishermen in a drainage canal alongside the Florida Turnpike near Vero Beach, Florida (27☃3′35″N 80☃9′47″W), almost 130 miles from Hollywood. Two weeks after his disappearance, Adam's severed head was found on the evening of August 10, 1981. After more than 90 minutes of fruitless searching and public address pages which failed to turn up Adam, she called the Hollywood Police at 1:55 pm.
She by coincidence ran into Adam's grandmother Jean inside the store, who helped her search for her son. Meanwhile, unable to find Adam in the toy department, Revé had Adam paged over the Sears public address system and continued to look for him throughout the store.
His parents believe that after the other boys dispersed, Adam was left alone outside the store, at an exit unfamiliar to him. It was later conjectured by Adam's parents that he was too shy to speak to the security guard, who presumed that he was in the company of the other boys, and as such the security guard made him leave by the same door that they did (which was the Sears west entrance). The security guard asked the older ones if their parents were there, and they said that they were not. A store manager informed her that a scuffle had broken out over whose turn it was at the kiosk and a security guard demanded that they leave the store. She said that she returned to find that Adam and the other boys had disappeared. Revé completed her business in the lamp department at approximately 12:15 pm. Revé intended to inquire about a lamp which was on sale, and left Adam at a kiosk with Atari 2600 video games on display where several other boys were taking turns playing games. They went together to the Sears store and entered via the north entrance. On the afternoon of July 27, 1981, Revé, Adam's mother, took him shopping with her to the Hollywood ("Sears") Mall in Hollywood, Florida ( 26☀0′46″N 80☁0′30″W). Although no new evidence has come forth, on December 16, 2008, police announced that the Walsh case was closed as they were satisfied that Toole was the murderer.
Toole died in prison of liver failure on September 15, 1996.
His story was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Florida's Turnpike in rural St. Adam John Walsh (Novem– July 27, 1981) was an American boy who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981.