American Criminal Season 16: Lucas, Toole, and the Murder of Adam Walsh

On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a Sears parking lot in Florida. Just days later his remains were found in a drainage canal over 100 miles away. The case captivated America, and started a national conversation about how to respond to cases of missing children. But investigators had no leads and the case eventually went cold. Then, in 1983, drifter Ottis Toole confesses to the crime out of the blue. At the same time, Ottis’s friend Henry Lee Lucas is making some confessions of his own. He’s been telling police that he and Ottis have killed hundreds of times over the last few years. But as the number of deaths attributed to the men got higher and higher, some started to wonder just how trustworthy these two admitted killers were. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices