John Walsh

A dead man was officially named Adam Walsh's killer Tuesday, but not because of any new evidence or a deathbed confession. Police simply took another look at 27 years of tips, psychic revelations, often-botched police work and a serial killer's chilling admissions and decided it was time. Time to ease the suffering of the Walsh family and time to point the finger at the man Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner said had been the prime suspect all along: Ottis Toole.

If you like your true crime populated by clever killers, tenacious detectives and intriguing, eccentric suspects, and if you demand a whodunit mystery with a satisfying measure of redemption, "Bringing Adam Home" is not the book for you. This is a tale of lazy, incompetent detectives, an unkempt, gap-toothed killer with an IQ of 75, and an investigation by the Hollywood (Fla.) Police Department that was so amateurish it took an outsider to clear the case ? 27 years after the murder.

Carson High quarterback John Walsh had a record-breaking debut in the Colts' 37-26 victory over La Puente Bishop Amat Friday night at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach. Walsh, who played at West Torrance last season, set school single-game records for completions (19) and yardage (375) while accounting for four touchdowns in his first game in control of Carson's single-back passing offense.

The news business sometimes produces the surprise phone call, and I surely wasn't expecting to hear John Walsh's voice on the line Wednesday. Not the day after Hollywood, Fla., police announced that, as had long been suspected, a demented drifter killed 6-year-old Adam Walsh in 1981. And I most certainly wasn't expecting Walsh to be calling in support of Mike Carona, Orange County's former sheriff now on trial on federal corruption charges.

The news business sometimes produces the surprise phone call, and I surely wasn't expecting to hear John Walsh's voice on the line Wednesday. Not the day after Hollywood, Fla., police announced that, as had long been suspected, a demented drifter killed 6-year-old Adam Walsh in 1981. And I most certainly wasn't expecting Walsh to be calling in support of Mike Carona, Orange County's former sheriff now on trial on federal corruption charges.

Dr. John Walsh, internationally known for his pioneering studies of how gastric acid functions and of treatments for ulcers and other diseases it can cause, has died at age 61. Walsh, research chief of the UCLA Digestive Diseases Division and the Straus Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, died Wednesday of complications after a heart attack, UCLA spokesmen said. The highly respected doctor served as president of the American Gastroenterological Assn. in 1994-95.

Walsh uprooted himself from the cultivated corridors of the East Coast and headed for the wilds of Malibu. In a move that many considered risky, he resigned as curator of paintings at Boston's venerable Museum of Fine Arts--the kind of job one might keep for a lifetime--to take charge of a fabulously wealthy Southern California upstart. Walsh's appointment as director brought new respect to the J. Paul Getty Museum, whose Roman-style villa had often been ridiculed as a rich man's folly.

As possessions of a ruling class, great works of art were for centuries considered legitimate booty for conquering warriors: To the victor went the spoils. But the modern era, which saw the rise of the nation-state, has fostered a belief that certain works of art rightly belong to a people or a culture as a whole. Disputes among nations over control and ownership of national heritage, or patrimony, are common. Perhaps the most famous example is the so-called Elgin Marbles.

The family of Brigham Young quarterback John Walsh bristled as they listened to callers on an El Paso sports talk show criticize Walsh before BYU's opener at Texas El Paso. "They said they were going to hurt John so bad that his grandchildren were going to come out with bruises," said Walsh's father, John. Walsh's 11-year-old sister, Sheri, phoned the station to tell them off.

The mean streets of Los Angeles have little in common with the friendly paths John Walsh crossed during his freshman year at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "It's a lot different than down here," said the Torrance native. "There are no gangsters, no shootings. Everybody says hi and everybody is polite and nice. Everybody smiles." The only gang Walsh expects to encounter at BYU is the one fighting for the Cougars' quarterback job.

A dead man was officially named Adam Walsh's killer Tuesday, but not because of any new evidence or a deathbed confession. Police simply took another look at 27 years of tips, psychic revelations, often-botched police work and a serial killer's chilling admissions and decided it was time. Time to ease the suffering of the Walsh family and time to point the finger at the man Hollywood Police Chief Chad Wagner said had been the prime suspect all along: Ottis Toole.

IS any poem more authentically American than "Casey at the Bat?" By happily making fun of our national pastime, it teaches us the civic virtue of humility and the literary value of irony. It tells us not to be too proud of our past accomplishments or rewards that may come in the future: Watch that banana peel! It shows us that even a subject as solemn as baseball -- the sacred American baseball! -- can stand a good strong horse laugh to keep it in perspective.

Television host John Walsh broke his left ankle in three places trying to mimic a young skateboarder on his syndicated show, a spokesman said. Walsh fell down a skate ramp Thursday at the Chelsea Piers sports complex in Manhattan, where he was taping an episode of "The John Walsh Show," show spokesman Gary Rosen said. The skateboarder had just completed his stunt when Walsh, 57, decided to try it himself, Rosen said. The accident was taped, and the episode is scheduled to air May 16, Rosen said.

John Walsh, host of the high-profile "America's Most Wanted" television program, says he is helping Elizabeth Smart's family look for a man who once worked for them who they believe had something to do with Elizabeth's abduction. On CNN's "Larry King Live" show Monday night, Walsh said that a future "America's Most Wanted" will profile a roofer he said was "a young homeless guy who lived at a homeless shelter" who may have used an alias when he worked for the Smarts.

John Walsh is still processing the last few years of his life, the ones that took him from aspiring writer-director to writer-director verite. After years of making a film "out of bubble gum and spit," his debut, "Ed's Next Move," was picked up for distribution in 1996. It was surreal, Walsh, 40, recalls, as he, a "Joe Schmo struggling to get a movie made, suddenly had people acting like I was a director."

The scumbags and lowlifes, as John Walsh refers to them in his rapid-fire staccato monotone, must have dreamed of a moment such as this: Walsh, the force behind "America's Most Wanted," the Fox television show turned cultural phenomenon that has helped capture hundreds of fugitives, said he lay near death a few weeks ago in a Florida hospital, a priest at his side administering the last rites.

John Walsh, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum since 1983, has resigned effective Sept. 30, The Times has learned. He will also retire on that date from his post as vice president of the $5-billion Getty Trust, which oversees the museum. Walsh's impending departure had been rumored for several months, but the 62-year-old scholar of 17th century Dutch painting always refused to discuss his plans. On Thursday, he began to formally notify colleagues and associates of his decision.

John Walsh, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu since 1983, has withdrawn from the competition to head the National Gallery of Art in Washington, improving the odds that the post could go to Earl A. (Rusty) Powell, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. According to sources close to the search process, Walsh had been considered the leading candidate to succeed J. Carter Brown, who resigned in January after 22 years of service.

John J. Walsh, 89, who coached the University of Wisconsin to eight NCAA boxing championships and 35 individual titles, died Thursday in Madison, Wis. Walsh coached the Badgers' boxing team for a quarter century, beginning in 1934. He scored so many victories that the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. team championship trophy was named in his honor. "No other coach in the history of intercollegiate boxing even approached that kind of success," E.C.

A cop was dead and the trail was going cold. The Texas Seven had disappeared without a trace--again. The rogue band of prison escapees had killed the policeman in Irving, Texas, on Christmas Eve, then slipped into the night. So the law called John Walsh. The jut-jawed host of the "America's Most Wanted" television series is law enforcement's go-to guy, the one cops call when they've run out of clues for those particularly heinous crimes that are standard fare for the weekly Fox TV show.