Every Town - Mysterious SLAYING of Canadian Blair Adams - Knoxville, TN

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

In 1996, A Canadian named Blair Adams embarked on a journey to America on a whim with vague motives and indefinite plans. But during his trip, Blair made some very strange decisions and exhibited inexplicable behavior that even people who barely knew him noticed was erratic. Blairs body was eventually found in Tennessee and Investigator Jimmy Jones described it as “the most interesting and strange he’d ever come across” in his 38 years on the job. --------------------------------------------🎉 Exclusive Video Library: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U92Hjw6b1RM&ab_channel=ScaryMysteries--------------------------------------------🎧 Scary Mysteries PodcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-mysteries/id1273612861Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkTAll Others: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine, because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime.

Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a darker. side. Traveling alone to a place, thousands of miles away from home, is one of the boldest and most exciting adventures any person can do in his or her lifetime. You can learn from a new culture, make friends, capture breathtaking views, and really, the possibilities are endless. In 1996, a Canadian named Blair Adams embarked on a journey to America on a whim with vague

motives and indefinite plans. But during his trip, Blair made some very strange decisions and exhibited an explicable behavior, but even people who barely knew him noticed was erratic. It could hardly be described as a pleasurable trip, as he cryptically disclosed earlier to a friend that he needed to run away from someone. Blair's body was eventually found in Tennessee. An investigator, Jimmy Jones, described it as the most interesting and strange he'd ever come across in his 38 years on the job. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald and welcome to this week's episode of Everytown, where we focus in on all the details of the mysterious slang of Blair Adams, and we try and put the pieces of the puzzle together. Now, let's turn back the clock 26 years as we head on over to Knoxville, Tennessee, and revisit the circumstances leading to Blair's unsolved death.

Let's start with a brief background of our subject. Robert Dennis, Blair Adams, more known as Blair Adams, was born on December 28, 1964, in Surrey, British Columbia, which is the westernmost province of Canada and its third most populous. He lived with his mother, Sandra Edwards, and stepfather, who was a German. In late 1995, just before Mr. Adams' life got chaotic, He worked for his stepfather's pre-fab construction company, SS Cedar Holmes, on an assisted living facility near Frankfurt, Germany. There, Blair met a German woman while attending a party in November, and the two began dating shortly after. They had a romantic relationship, and the woman described Blair as a gentleman.

In contrast, though, some of his coworkers found the Canadian man, abrasive and confrontational. someone who'd get into random fights. Mr. Adams had expressed to many people that he feared for his life, but told his girlfriend and another friend, they wanted to avoid any violent encounters with his former co-workers who had just returned to Germany. Back in his hometown of Surrey, Blair worked as a construction foreman where his friends,

co-workers and family members knew him as a cheerful, friendly, and optimistic individual. His mother pictured him as a kind and ambitious individual and told of a romantic liaison that Blair had had with another male roommate. She said, They acted a little strangely and giggled a lot, and it was kind of odd, but then he went back to a heterosexual relationship after that. Strangely, things took a different turn during the summer of 1996 just weeks before Blair disappeared.

He wasn't his usual self. His demeanor changed, and Sandra noticed her son had wild mood swings. The worried mom said, Something was obviously very much the matter. He hadn't been sleeping well, something was wrong. I asked him numerous times what was wrong, and he said, I don't think I should tell you about it. And to this day, I don't know what it is.

Mr. Adams may have seemed probably, but there was never a diagnosis of any kind of mental illness he suffered from. But he also had his fair share of issues like alcohol abuse in the past, which had been alleviated by attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that made Blair sober for two years. That was why I boggled the minds of those who knew him when he began to get careless at work, particularly leaving the job site unlocked. Eventually, he quit his job without setting a reason. and never got his last paycheck saying,

I didn't know if I could carry on here. Blair also didn't heed his well-meaning co-workers who advised him to go see a doctor. His state of mind was revealed when he told his mother that people were spreading rumors about him and shared with friends that he feared someone was out to kill him. Was it a real fear or a product of his paranoia? Perhaps the timeline of events may shed light

on the sad fade of Blair. On Friday, July 5th of 1996, Mr. Adams' strange behavior reached its peak when he withdrew most of his money from his Canadian bank account and emptied his safety deposit box containing $6,000 in cash, jewelry, gold, and platinum. And he kept them in his fanny pack, or a belt bag.

He told his mom Sandra that something was bothering him that impulsively booked a trip to Courtney British Columbia to visit his uncle, but he wasn't home. Then, two days later, on July 7th, Blair drove his Chevrolet, Chivet, and tried to board a ferry from Victoria, Canada, to Seattle, Washington. But he was flagged by U.S. immigration as a probable drug courier for being a single man traveling on his own with a huge amount of money and resources. He was finally denied entry after authorities found out about his.

convictions on drug and assault charges which he lied about, and was Blair's first failed attempt to cross to the U.S., so he instead visited a female friend in Vancouver, another friend in Westminster, and British Columbia, before going back to Surrey to go see his mother. He seemed anxious and didn't want to stay in his apartment. The following day in July 8th, Blair left Surrey for the last time and purchased in cash. A 1700, dollar plane ticket bound for Germany in order to meet his former girlfriend there. But on the same day, he requested a refund stating that the person he intended to visit had fell ill. But the truth was, his ex-German girlfriend wasn't expecting him at all. Blair then attempted for the

second time to cross the U.S. border by foot in the early morning of July 9th. Authorities of the Pacific Highway border crossing noticed that he had small scratches on his hands'est. and legs. And they had stopped him because he matched the description of an auto thief of a blue car that was taken in Vancouver and was found near the point where he tried to cross. Due to lack of evidence that he indeed stole a car. Blair was released by the police, but he again failed to enter U.S. soil. His friend would later say that he had seen Mr. Adams driving a blue car the day before that was not as Chevrolet Chvette. Strongly determined to reach a America, Blair abandoned his car at the Vancouver International Airport and rented a Nissan Ultima,

which he drove across the border to Seattle. Finally, he was in the U.S., and from there, he bought an overnight one-way ticket to Washington, D.C., for almost $800, when he could have bought a round-trip ticket for half the price. Blair arrived at the Washington-Dulles International Airport on July 10th, then rented a Toyota Camry. was on the road by 6.45 a.m. His destination now? Knoxville, Tennessee, which is a seven-hour drive from Washington. But why there? That's the unanswered question that we have now. On his way to Tennessee, Mr. Adams backed his car into another vehicle near Zion Crossroads on U.S. Highway 250 in Troy, Virginia. The other car owner didn't mind that much. It was minor damage. Neither. Neither.

been told detectives during the investigation that Blair was actually nice, but was in a hurry. After driving for approximately 500 miles from southwest of Washington, Blair arrived in Knoxville sometime in the late afternoon. At 5.30 p.m., he was seen at a gas station at Strawberry Plains Pike, where he complained of having difficulty with his car key, so he couldn't get in the car. It was Gerald Sapp, an interstate repair service driver who responded to a clerk's call to assist Blair. The serviceman then pointed out that the key Blair attempted to use in opening the car was for the Nissan Ultima, the car rental that he abandoned in Seattle. Mr. Sapp said, he didn't appear to be messed up.

He didn't appear to be on drugs, but his mind wasn't functioning correctly for some reason. He then told Mr. Adams, if you drove this thing up here, you've got to have another key in your pockets. But Blair refused to look in his pockets for other keys, and the serviceman thought his client was nuts, found and determined that he had the key for the Toyota Camry. Mr. Sapp arranged for a record driver to tow the Camry to an auto shop and drop off Mr. Adams at the nearby Fairfield Inn,

where you could spend the night. Upon entering the newly opened in CCTV footage caught Blair in the lobby, and he spent 40 minutes in there loitering around the premises, exiting and entering the lobby five times. He then booked a room for one night, but he never got to use it. In fact, witnesses said that he didn't even enter the room. When the receptionist attempted to give him the change for the $100 he paid, Blair exited the lobby and just headed outside.

An employee of the inn, Tisha Hartsfield, found Mr. Adams acting paranoid. She explained, He just was very nervous, agitated, expecting someone to come in on him, even though there wasn't anybody there. I don't know who he was looking for, but he was waiting for somebody to walk in for him. Two alleged sightings of Blair Adams, after he left the inn on the night of July 10, 1996, were reported. The first one involved three employees of TNR Truck Shop and Dandridge, approximately 33 miles away from Knoxville. They claim seeing Blair there between 9.30 and 10.30 p.m. flipping through tattoo magazines and talking to an unidentified man about Canadian currency. The second report came from two women at the Cracker Barrel on Strawberry Plains Pike, who claimed they saw Blair with an anonymous man, but both have different descriptions of,

of how the man looked. However, both reports were ruled out by Perry Moyers, then a Knoxville County Sheriff's Office detective who worked on the case. Twelve hours after Blair Adams arrived in Knoxville, he was then found dead 2,687 miles away from his hometown. At around 7 a.m. on July 11th, construction workers discovered his body in the parking lot of the inn. They initially thought He was a homeless man sleeping on the pavement, but as they approached, they realized it was a dead body. Authorities soon arrived and checked out the scene. Blair was half naked with his shirt open, and his pants removed like someone else had pulled them down for him, according to Knox County Sheriff Jimmy Jones.

The sheriff also said that the victim's socks were on the asphalt. Sets of keys, including the key for the Camry and a hotel room card, were scattered around Blair's side. well. His shoes were off, and he had apparently pulled one of them under his head like a pillow. Thousands of dollars in Canadian, German, and American cash were found around his body and in the pockets of his blue jeans. Authorities also found a black duffel bag containing various travel receipts and maps. Blair's fanny pack was unzipped, but surprisingly, the nearly five ounces of gold bars, gold and platinum coins, pieces of jewelry, and a pair of sunglasses were intact.

An autopsy report, conducted by the University of Tennessee Medical Center, determined that Mr. Adams had sustained many cuts and abrasions on his body. Particularly, his forehead was deeply wounded, which police determined was caused by a crowbar or a club. The final cause of his death was due to a violent blow that ruptured his stomach and caused sepsis stemming from abdominal perforation. Authorities noted that some of bloods were. Blair's bruises and wounds were indicative of fighting back at his attacker.

Tufts of hair were ripped by the attacker from his head, and Blair's hands were also bloodied as if he held them up to protect himself. Detectives also recovered a long strand of hair from Blair's hand, which was the only significant piece of physical evidence, but it didn't provide a lead worth pursuing. Since the Canadian traveler was found half naked, authorities initially speculated that his death was a second, sex-related crime. Some of his injuries indicated that he was sexually abused, but there was no DNA

evidence to back that up. So, investigators were left with nothing much to work on and solving the murder of Blair Adams. What really happened to him in the last 12 hours of his life? Although he struggled with alcohol addiction before, Blair's toxicology report after his death, showed no drugs more alcohol in his system. Investigators believe that after he left the Fairfield in on foot, he had dinner somewhere because lettuce, shrimp, and meat were found in his stomach during the autopsy. It was also speculated that Blair's trip to Knoxville was motivated by a planned drug deal, but none of his family and friends believe that he was involved in drug dealing.

Besides, Blair hadn't made any calls to the U.S. while he was still in Canada. A favored theory that may have explained Blair's death centered on a sex act that turned fatal. Near the crime scene and the inn was a truck stop that served as a hotbed for prostitution at the time. Authorities speculated that Blair picked up someone whose pimp was close by, and they planned to rob him but got scared. Or the sex act happened inside a vehicle. When the struggle began, Blair was hit in the forehead, throwing. onto the pavement and struck by the car's bumper while driving away.

The only person who reported hearing anything out of the ordinary was a security guard at a nearby business. And he told detectives that he heard an abrupt scream around 3.30 a.m. and believed it to be a woman's voice. Authorities assume this was the prostitute scream when Blair was hit on the forehead. The investigators believe Mr. Adams didn't know anyone from Knoxville. So it's a mystery how he ended up there and met his tragic death. When his mother Sandra was asked about what she knew of her son's travel to America, she said that he traveled to the south to attend the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, although the event began on July 19th, eight days after Blair was discovered dead.

Mrs. Edwards never disclosed this information to authorities, and she didn't explain how she knew Blair's destination. nation, how he ended up in Knoxville, and why she kept it a secret from police. When Sandra's German husband answered a phone call to their house about their son's case, he became very angry and said the chances of solving the case were remote as hell, and that they didn't want to open a can of worms again. It's been more than 25 years since the anniversary of Blair Adams' passing, and his case remains a very cold one.

David Davenport, another investigator who was heavily involved in the case, believes there is no hope for solving the case unless someone comes forward and confesses. Although Blair, about his life was in danger, authorities believed the threat was imaginary, and that Blair's journey was an escape from his own paranoia. Either way, though. Blair Adams ended up dead, just as he had feared. Anyone with information is encouraged to call case.

ACSO's cold case unit at 865-215-2675, or email coldcase at noxsharp.org. So that's going to do it for this week's episode of Everytown. If you want even more stories from us, then go check out our Scary Mysteries podcast, or better yet, watch all these Everytown episodes and the others on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. Tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange and mysterious stories. Because who knows? Maybe your town will be next.