John Walsh
Encyclopedia : J : JO : JOH : John Walsh
- For John Walsh the 18th century British scientist, see John Walsh (scientist)
In the summer of 1981, Walsh was a partner in a hotel management company in Hollywood, Florida. He and his wife, Revé, had a six-year-old son, Adam. On July 27, 1981, Adam was abducted. His severed head was later found in a drainage canal more than 100 miles away from home, although his body was never recovered.
The prime suspect in Adam's abduction and murder, Ottis Toole, was never charged in the Adam Walsh case. He died in prison while serving life for other crimes.
The Walsh family soon began a campaign to help missing and exploited children. In spite of bureaucratic and legislative problems, John and Revé's efforts eventually led to the creation of the Missing Children Act of 1982 and the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984.
Subsequently, they founded the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to legislative reform. The centers, originally located in West Palm Beach, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; Orange County, California; and Rochester, New York; recently merged with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), where John Walsh serves on the Board of Directors.
Today, Walsh continues to testify before Congress and state legislatures on crime, missing children and victims' rights issues. His latest efforts include lobbying for a Constitutional amendment for victims' rights.
Walsh has also been the host of the FOX television show America's Most Wanted since 1988. He was selected as host after the completion of the program's pilot, and a lengthy search. By that time, Walsh was already well-known because of the murder of his son and his subsequent actions to help missing and exploited children.
Walsh was host of The John Walsh Show which aired from 2002 to 2004. [link]
In July 2005, Walsh attempted to assist the family of missing teen Natalee Holloway. Walsh was critical of the Aruban crime investigation and, along with T.V. personality Dr. Phil, urged Americans to boycott Aruba.
Walsh was a special guest on an episode of that aired on August 14, 2005. The episode visited the home of Colleen Nick, who is the parent of a missing child (Morgan Nick, disappeared in 1995, still missing). Walsh has featured the Morgan Nick case on America's Most Wanted several times.
Tributes
A punk rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio named itself "John Walsh" in order to spread a positive message to teens, rather than the messages usually associated with hardcore music. With lyrics such as "the speeding criminal is the coward," and "Don't spend the years being hurt/ Don't spend your life loving jerks," They tackle themes from domestic violence to drunk driving.
External links
- [America's Most Wanted] Profile of John Walsh
- [John Walsh] at the Internet Movie Database
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.