Police in Florida announced this afternoon that they've finally solved the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh.

Ottis Toole, an accused serial killer, killed the boy 27 years ago, police say.

The 6-year-old's father, John Walsh, became an anti-crime crusader and has hosted the America's Most Wanted program for the last two decades.

"Although Adam's killer never served one day in prison for destroying our son's life and almost ruining ours, nor will he ever because he died in prison serving time for an unrelated murder, we are satisfied that the main suspect in Adam's murder –- Ottis Toole -- has now been positively identified and that this chapter in our lives is now closed," Walsh says in a statement on the AMW website.



The Miami Herald looks back at the crime:

The case has remained in the national spotlight since Adam disappeared on July 27, 1981. Revé Walsh left her Hollywood home with Adam that morning to run some errands. They arrived about noon at a Sears and the mother left Adam at a video game while she walked to the lamp department. When she returned about five minutes later, her son was gone. Revé searched the aisles, had Adam paged and then police were called. A teenage security guard would later report she had thrown Adam out of the store along with several other children who were bickering. Then on Aug. 10, two fishermen found Adam's head in a canal near Vero Beach.

Toole died in prison in 1996.

(AP photo)