‘America’s Most Wanted’: John Walsh & Son Callahan on Working Together to Bust Bad Guys

Scott Fishman April 20, 2025, 1:00 pm

Comments

John Walsh and Callahan Walsh in America's Most Wanted — Michael Becker / FOX

John Walsh and his son Callahan are looking to bust more bad guys with the help of the public through America’s Most Wanted. Fox’s true-crime staple returns for Season 28 on April 21 where the duo break down some of the country’s toughest fugitive cases alongside their accomplished team of law enforcement experts. From horrific murders to robbery rings, the hope for each investigation is to get leads in bringing these dangerous criminals to justice. Since its inception, AMW has been a longtime success having a hand in almost 1,200 captures across 45 countries and has assisted in finding more than 60 missing children.

Walsh launched the series on the network in 1988 out of the nightmare of losing his own son Adam. The six-year-old was abducted from a Sears department store at a mall in Hollywood, Florida, and murdered in 1981. It took 27 years before police announced serial killer Ottis Toole as the murderer. The grieving father’s mission remained to use the platform to get criminals off the streets. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was enacted in 1996, requiring anyone convicted of a sex crime to register as a sex offender and have their information posted online.

Callahan has since followed in his dad’s footsteps, working his way up from behind the scenes to in front of the camera. He also shares the same passion for making an impact as executive director for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children An organization founded by his parents John and Revé Walsh more than 40 years ago.

We caught up with the cohosts to talk about what it has been like working together and the cases they’re tackling.

How would you describe the evolution of the show from when you started to now? No matter how much the times change, your mission remains the same.

John Walsh: Always the same. It’s evolved over the years, and Fox has asked us to do a clip show. They haven’t picked an air date, but we’ve already shot it from 1988 up until 9/11. I was the only host allowed at Ground Zero. We take a look back with another one too where we take a look back from 9/11 to the present, which really shows you the effect of social media and all the different ways you can watch TV through all the streaming services. It has been a fascinating journey. We’ve had to adapt to what’s been happening in the world. It seems like the bad guys are ahead of the legislatures, the cops. We have a reputation.

Our mantra is we don’t need to know your name. We don’t need to know who you are. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me where you live. Don’t tell me anything. Just tell me where the dirt bag is, and we’ll go get him. And we went and got him almost 1,200 times. I caught 17 guys off the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted. That’s more than any FBI agent in the history of the FBI. We brought up 65 missing kids. The highlight of my life. That’s including Elizabeth Smart. Those are homeruns when you get kids back alive. We’ve caught hundreds of the [U.S.] Marshal’s Most Wanted. We’re like the court of last resort.

Do you find your work has become more challenging these days?

John Walsh: The real challenge is now the crime rate in America is skyrocketing from what’s happening at the border. We talked to the border czar [Tom Homan] at Homeland Security. This is what is guesstimate, over 300,000 unaccompanied minors from seven years old up until 17. I don’t think it’s that high. Tom Homan doesn’t, but a lot of them are teenagers that want to stay in America but are listed missing. It’s way too many. Nobody took a picture of them or did a DNA swab. You have the Haitians where their whole country is falling apart. It’s chaos. They guesstimate 20,000 gang banger Haitians who paid their way through the Texas border and came across to do their mayhem here. They guesstimate 60,000 convicted homicide murders were committed by guys who now live in the United States. Most of them are from different gangs in Central America.

Then you’ve got TDA ( Tren de Aragua) from Venezuela. We’ve chased the cartel forever. We’ve caught El Chapo, and then he escaped, caught him again and then escaped and caught him again. Now he is in prison forever. With the gangs, and then China has made millions and billions of dollars…There are going to be some incredible changes because some of this has just come about in the last three or four years. We’re going to have the toughest time ever just picking the cases. We have the resources to pick them up where we get the tip. If you are the sheriff somewhere, you can’t go to Ukraine or somewhere. We do that. It’s going to be a really dangerous ride, but I think this group and the cabinet and [Mark Pittella], director of the Marshals, who is a great friend of Cal and mine. Pam Bondi has been a great AG (attorney general). I’ve been through them all from Regan on the federal level and beyond She is the best I’ve dealt with. It’s a really challenging time. Good thing I’ve got my really smart son with me.

Cal, when was the moment you knew you wanted to follow into your dad’s line of work?

Callahan Walsh: America’s Most Wanted was on long enough in its original run on Fox that I not only grew up on set, but I was around long enough that I actually worked on the show. After I graduated from college, I joined the show as a PA and went out and shot recreations. The reenactments of the crimes, which is almost like making a little movie. You’re casting actors and extras. You have stunt drivers and firearm experts. It’s a fun experience. I always thought I would stay behind the camera. I wanted to produce and eventually become a director. Eventually, I left television after The Hunt [with John Walsh] was picked up. This was after America’s Most Wanted was canceled. I was developing the show and pitched that to CNN as an original series. I left television and started working for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The nonprofit my parents co-founded after Adam’s disappearance. It started in Florida in my parent’s garage off a card table and a landline telephone. The organization has grown to where we have helped recover now more 60,000 missing children since its inception. My heart has always been on the advocacy side of things. Watching how my parents have advocated for other families to make sure Adam didn’t die in vain. That there could be an organization and a place for families to go through when they are looking for a lost loved one. Also, watching my father go out every week and catch these bad guys, I knew I was going to be involved in one way or another with my parents’ legacy. It was at the National Center where I started doing more on camera work.

So, that led to you doing more.

Callahan: In fact, one of my first interviews was with Good Morning America live in Time Square in the studio. No real media training at that point. I’d been watching my father for a long time, but I’d never really done an interview myself. I was shaking in that seat because I was nervous. They liked me. I did a lot of segments for Good Morning America. A lot of tips for parents. It was Discovery that wanted me to join my father. It was their idea to have me come on to co-host with my father. They asked my father if his son would join him on screen. He said, “You ask him because I’ve been trying to get him on camera for years.” I wanted nothing to do with that, but at this point I’d have some legs under me. I was doing a lot of interviews telling our story, telling Adam’s story. I agreed. We started on In Pursuit [with John Walsh]. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth and get the understanding of working with these families and what it takes to bring these types of cases to the screen.

There were so many sensitivities and ways you need to respect the families. You need to make sure you’re not just retelling some horrific thing that happened to them, but doing it in a way that can bring about meaningful change. I think that was the perfect training ground for me when I came on with my father with the America’s Most Wanted back in primetime where we can get some great work done. It has been an honor.

What do you remember about the first season together?

Callahan: We had six episodes last season and caught seven fugitives in six episodes, and recovered two missing kids. The proof is in the pudding. It works. The formula is still the same. Of course, we have social media now. We have our show on streaming platforms. We caught a guy six months after the original airdate. Something that would have never happened during the original AMW. So, we have more tools in the tool box, but the formula is the same. People don’t want to be living next to these creeps. They don’t want their kids living in the same communities as the bad guys. Time and time again they prove us right. If you give someone an opportunity to do something good, they’ll take it. The fact we’ve caught more fugitives than aired episodes I think is proof.

John, what has it been like to collaborate with your son?

John: It has been a real pleasure. I admire Cal, not because he is my son. I always believed he could do it. I always believed he would be that guy you can count on, and I’m very proud of him. He has two little boys. He works for me on the weekends, and he works for the National Center during the week, 60 hours in West Palm Beach. I always believed he had the guts and stamina. It’s exhausting. The other day we shot for 14 hours, and he never b*tches. I had to run it all by my wife. She is the rock who is running everything. The work can be dangerous. One of the guys we stopped on a run broke my arm. I had a stick with me. I didn’t have anything with me. He hit the cop over the head unconscious. He broke my arm in 10 places. Another guy I was chasing with one cop and myself, he got stuck in the spear of a metal fence. I was holding him up. The fence went through him, underneath his heart. While I’m holding him up, he was stabbing me with a knife in the calf.

So my wife is going, “So, you keep coming home all busted up and you’re going to do it to your son. You know what? Do it because that’s what you do.” I testified over a hundred times before congress. She was great. She didn’t do the whole, “We’ve already lost a child. Don’t do it.” It was like hey we have to make sure Adam didn’t die in vain. She always said that. Nobody helped us in 1981. Nobody looked for him.

You carry that with you on the work you’ve been doing.

John: The FBI wouldn’t talk to me when Adam was missing for two weeks. They said, “Hey cowboy, calm down. Kids come back and we have to give it 48 hours.” I’m going, “Bullsh*t.” Hollywood, Florida had never had a case. They didn’t know what they were doing. They were not even looking in the ponds in case Adam drowned. It was the worst two weeks of my life watching them stumble. I never went home from the Hollywood Police Department because I knew they were doing such a bad job. You couldn’t do it now, but I did. I stayed in the conference room with my business partners. I was a hotel builder. My two partners and I were building a $26 million hotel on Paradise Island. The project of our life, but this took us in a different way. I’m proud to have my son working with me. I don’t believe you start your child in the vice president’s chair of the company because you own the company. He started down in the PAs on location and came through. I admire him. He is a good young man.

What can you tell us about the episodes to come?

We’ve been asked by the different law enforcement agencies not to tip off what the cases are, but we have an FBI Top 10. I’m proud of the work we do. People shoot at us when I go out in those fugitive squads. It’s been a hell of a journey, but Cal’s right in there. He just saddled up. We’re having great success. When Fox called and said, “We need you. You’re the Tom Brady of true-crime. You’re the real guy. You’re coming back to your original home, primetime top of the shelf. Come on John. You’re the guy who catches the bad guy. Now you have your son Callahan, who is really smart.” We’re looking forward to this season. It took me 27 years to get the files away from the Hollywood Police for Adam. A brand new chief came in and said, “It’s horrible what we did to you and kept you from these files. I’ll give you all these files and I’ll probably lose my job.” I said, “You won’t. People will admire you for giving me these files. A retired Miami Beach detective and a Broward County DA Kelly Hancock solved Adam’s case in one month.

Deborah Norville Leaving 'Inside Edition' After 30 Years — Find Out When She'll Exit

I had to wait 27 years to get those files. You’re talking to the guy who has been through the wait, been through the murder with our family and all that nightmare and waiting for justice. There is no such thing as closure. You just want to know that bastard got caught. That son of a b*tch Ottis Toole was out here for 27 years, kidnapping and raping little boys. Now the FBI does work at our center. I’ve been FBI Man of the Year. Now we’re partners, but back in 1981 they were on the top of my most hated list. Things change. We buried that hatchet…It’s the public that has found these guys. It’s us bringing to the public. We’ve figured out a way to do it. The people have kept this show going and catching these horrible guys. The crime rate is totally out of control. The marshals already submitted 400 cases. We are doing an FBI Top 10 for the first show. It will be a fascinating.

America’s Most Wanted Season 28 premiere, April 21, 9/8c, Fox