Jeffrey Dahmer Suspected of Killing Adam Walsh

An FBI agent is attempting to re-open the case of necrophilic, cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, from whom the world was finally delivered courtesy of a skull-bashing fellow prison inmate 12 years ago, in connection with the 25-year old unsolved murder of Adam Walsh, son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh.

6-year-old Adam had disappeared from a mall in south Florida in 1981.  His head was recovered weeks later by fisherman, but his body was never found.

Dahmer has apparently been a suspect in the case since 1991, but because John Walsh was a well-known figure by then (if I recall correctly, the original tip line was "(800) CRIME-88", putting the show in its third or fourth season by 1991), prosecutors thought the link might be so sensational that they'd never be able to seat a jury for Dahmer's trial.  While Walsh was told of the possible link at the time, it's never before been made public.

Circumstantially, there appears to be a lot to go on.

• 6-year-old Adam disappeared in a shopping mall Sears in Hollywood, Florida on July 27, 1981.
• While Dahmer committed most of his crimes in Wisconsin, he lived near Hollywood in 1981.
• When the Dahmer story broker in 1991, a Miami Herald employee recognized his picture, having had a bizarre encounter with him on July 27, 1981, which had led to his following Dahmer into the Sears store from which Adam shortly disappeared.
• Another man recognized Dahmer in the newspapers, having encountered him just outside the Sears store that day in 1981, carrying a boy by one arm, against his will, out of the store and depositing him into a blue van.
• Several other witnesses reported seeing the blue van screech out of the parking lot.
• The owner of the restaurant where Dahmer worked at the time has stated that one of his delivery vehicles was a blue van, which employees would often take for personal use and "not come back with it for two days."

In 1991, after John Walsh learned of the connection, he asked the State of Florida to waive the death penalty if Dahmer confessed to killing his son.  Such an offer was taken by authorities to Dahmer in Wisconsin, but he never did confess.  In Walsh's letter, he noted that the crime would not have been inconsistent with Dahmer's early MO.

Walsh wrote, "Many people have forgotten that Jeffrey Dahmer started out as a pedophile, kidnapper, and torturer of young boys. He certainly fits the profile of someone who might be capable of murdering a beautiful 6-year-old boy."

Milwaukee's CBS affiliate will broadcast interviews tonight with John Walsh and the FBI profiler whose conversations with Dahmer have convinced him he was Adam's killer.