TV show host urges Boston viewers to shun fear and step up

About 73,000 Boston-area residents watch ''America's Most Wanted" each week, and police hope that some of them will drop a dime and help them solve some crimes.

John Walsh, the host of the popular TV show that is filming in Boston this week, appeared at Boston police headquarters yesterday to urge Bostonians to shun the ''Stop snitchin' " culture that contributed to police making arrests or identifying suspects in only about one-fourth of the city's 75 homicides last year.

''One person can make a tremendous difference," said Walsh, whose son Adam was abducted and murdered in 1981.

''I send the message to people out there in Boston who might be afraid to get involved, who might be afraid to make that call. Well, 875 dangerous fugitives, 15 off the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list -- terrorists, child molesters, predators, and horrible degenerates -- have been captured because one person had the guts to make that call."

But several residents watching the filming last night on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury said they're skeptical that people would be any more likely to call a television show than the police department's anonymous tip line. People are too afraid, they said.

''If they find out you're the one who's telling, snitches end up like the victims," said a 17-year-old who wouldn't give his name because of that fear. ''Out here, you don't know nothing, you don't see nothing."

Jon Leiberman, a producer working on the Boston episode scheduled to air Feb. 11, said that besides the unsolved beating death last October of 68-year-old Jean Lampron in South Boston, the show will feature surveillance tape of a man who police believe could be connected to the August 2001 slaying of a nightclub manager.

Todd A. Thomasco, 36, was shot in the head at the popular North Station nightclub Polly Esther's during a robbery. His killer remains at large.

''We're hopeful that if our viewers look at the images of a man caught on tape inside the club shortly before the murder, that will aid in the investigation," Leiberman said. ''That was one that's unsolved that's been out there awhile and one the police thought our national reach could help with."

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com