Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Key Evidence Said Lost in Walsh Killing

Police misplaced crucial evidence that might have solved the grisly decapitation of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, one of America’s most high-profile unsolved murders, newspapers reported. Police files show Ottis Toole, 48, a convicted serial killer serving five life sentences, is the prime suspect in the July 27, 1981, kidnapping and murder of Adam, the newspapers said. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, one of the newspapers that sued for the release of police files, said police lost bloody carpet scraps taken from the floor of Toole’s Cadillac and trace amounts of dried blood found on a machete that Toole once told investigators he had used to cut off Adam’s head.