Adam’s Legacy

In 2002, Revé and John Walsh met with George W. Bush when the president hosted the National Summit on Missing Children at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.

It was a television clip that lasted less than 20 seconds, yet as it was played and replayed on television stations across America, it haunted everyone who saw it. Taped by a surveillance camera, the clip showed a young girl taking a short cut home across the empty parking lot of a Sarasota car wash. Suddenly, a man in mechanic’s overalls enters the picture, barring her path. They talk for a moment, then the man leads the girl by the hand out of camera range.

The event took place on the evening of February 1, and the girl was a pretty, 11-year-old blonde named Carlie Brucia. When she failed to arrive home, her anxious parents reported her missing, but it wasn’t until the following day, when the car-wash owner looked at his tape, that it became clear an abduction had taken place. For five days, police and “Team Adam” experts from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) searched frantically, but it was too late. On February 6, Carlie’s body was found behind a local church.

Read the entire article in the Summer 2004 issue