On the afternoon of July 27, 1981, Adam's mother, Revé, took him shopping with her to the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida (). They went together to Sears and entered through the north entrance. Revé intended to inquire about a lamp which was on sale, and left Adam at a kiosk with Atari 2600 video games on display, where several other boys were taking turns playing them. Revé completed her business in the lamp department around 12:15 pm. She said that she returned to find that Adam and the other boys had disappeared. A store manager informed her that a scuffle had broken out over whose turn it was at the kiosk, and a security guard demanded that they leave the store. The security guard asked the older boys if their parents were there, and they said that they were not. Adam's parents later conjectured that he was too shy to speak to the security guard, who presumed that he was in the company of the other boys, and as such, the security guard made him leave by the same door by which the boys entered (which was the Sears west entrance). His parents believe that after the other boys dispersed, he was left alone outside the store, at an exit unfamiliar to him. Meanwhile, unable to find Adam in the toy department, Revé had him paged over the public-address system and continued to look for him throughout the store. By coincidence she ran into his paternal grandmother, Jean, who helped her search for him. After more than 90 minutes of searching and public-address pages which failed to locate him, she called the Hollywood Police at 1:55 pm.