Blair Adams Thought There Was Someone Out To Get Him And Then He Wound Up Dead.

Robert Dennis Blair Adams

He was born on December 28th, 1964 in Surrey, Greater Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia, Canada to Sarah Edwards. 

Adams was a well-rounded, fun-loving, friendly and happy person with a job as a construction foreman in Surrey. He was a hard worker and boasted about his job to all his friends. In the summer of 1996, this calm and cheerful 31-year-old man changed into a anxious and extremely paranoid person with constant mood swings. He hadn’t been sleeping well either and when his mother asked him what was wrong, he said, "I don’t think I should tell you about it." And that was it, Adams never did tell Sarah what was wrong.

It turned out that Adams thought that someone was out to kill him, so he quit his job and made plans to skip town.

On Friday, July 5th,  Adams stopped at his local bank, withdrew his savings and emptied his safe deposit box of more than $6,000 in cash and thousands more in jewelry, gold, and platinum. 

The next day, Adams went to Courtenay, BC, to visit his uncle. However, his uncle wasn't home so Adams left.

On July 7th, he attempted to enter the United States via ferry. He was flagged as a possible drug courier due to the large amount of cash he had with him. He was asked if he had any prior convictions of drug or assault charges. He lied and said that he had none and when it was found out that he did, Adams was denied entry.

He then visited a girlfriend in Vancouver, a friend in New Westminster, and his mother, Sandra Edwards.

He told his friend about quitting his construction job and seemed anxious and didn't want to stay at his apartment. He then told his friend that someone was out to kill him.

In the early morning hours of July 9th, Adams was discovered by Canadian border patrol officers attempting to cross the border on foot at the Pacific Highway Border Crossing. Adams had scratches covering his legs and hands and he matched the description of a man implicated in an automobile theft of a blue car. Adams had appeared dazed but proclaimed his innocence to the authorities. Police had no evidence to connect him to the stolen blue car so they released him back into Canada.

A friend later told authorities she saw Adams driving a blue car, not his usual Chevrolet Chevette, the day before. Adams had abandoned his Chevette at the Vancouver International Airport and rented a Nissan Altima there.

On July 10, 1996, he made it across the border to Seattle. He then ditched the rental car at the Seattle airport and purchased an overnight, one-way flight to Washington D.C. He arrived at Dulles International Airport in the early morning on Wednesday, July 10. He rented a white Toyota Camry about 6:45 a.m., and began the 7-hour drive to Knoxville, Tennessee. Later that morning, on U.S. Route 250 in Troy, Virginia, Adams backed his car into another motorist's vehicle, causing minor damage. The driver of the car told detectives that Adams "seemed nice, but was in a hurry."

Adams arrived in Strawberry Plains, on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee sometime around 5 p.m. on July 10th, 1996.  He was at a BP gas station calling a tow truck driver after the key to his rental car didn't work. The tow truck driver, Gerald Sapp, said that Adams appeared to be having trouble mentally. Adams was using the wrong key on his rental car. 

"I asked him to look in his pockets," Sapp said. "I said, 'If you drove this thing up here, you gotta have another key in your pockets.' And he wouldn’t look. So I thought he was nuts. He was bound and determined that he had the key he needed for that car."

Sapp arranged for the rental car to be taken to and auto body shop and then dropped Adams off at the nearby Fairfield Inn. Sapp said Adams walked off without his bag. Sapp took it to him, then went home.

The then-newly-opened Fairfield Inn was located across Interstate 40 from a construction site. There Adams purchased a room with a $100 bill about 7 p.m., then walked away without getting his change. The clerk repeatedly tried to call his room, but there was no answer. Later it was determined that Adams never entered his room.

Hotel surveillance video footage showed him entering and exiting the lobby five times within 40 minutes. Hotel employee Ticca Hartsfield stated, "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.”

Authorities believe that Adams then left the hotel on foot and went to get something to eat. He was supposedly spotted by two customers at a nearby Cracker Barrel, they both allegedly saw Adams with another man who was never identified. Their stories differed on what that man looked like.

Another unconfirmed sighting was when three employees at the T&R Truck Stop on Deep Springs Road in Dandridge, which was 30 minutes from Knoxville, claimed they saw Adams there between 9:30-10:30 p.m., flipping through tattoo magazines and talking to an unidentified man about Canadian money.

Around 7:30 a.m. on July 11th, construction workers discovered Adams body in the construction site parking lot across the street from the hotel he was staying at. He was "half-naked" with his pants off and shirt open.  His pants, shoes, and socks were lying near his body. Scattered around his body was German, Canadian, and U.S. currency totaling nearly $4,000. In addition to the money found with the body, police also located a black duffel bag which contained maps and travel receipts and a fanny pack which held 5 ounces of gold bars, gold and platinum coins, jewelry, a pair of sunglasses and the key that belonged to the Toyota Camry that Adams had lost. 

The autopsy report concluded that Adams a recently ate lettuce, meat and shrimp. He had sustained many cuts and abrasions. The Knox County Sheriff’s Department has speculated some of the wounds came from fending off an attack. Adams died from a single blow to his stomach. His official cause of death was ruled sepsis stemming from an abdominal perforation. He also had a wound to his forehead, which police determined was caused by a crowbar or a club. It was also believed Adams had been sexually assaulted, though no DNA evidence was found to confirm this suspicion.

The only physical DNA evidence found at the scene was one strand of long hair that was gripped in Adams's hand. Adams had been sober for two years at the time of his death, and had recently stopped attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Adams' case remains unsolved.

If you have any information about this case, please call the Cold Case Unit of the Knox County Sheriff’s Department at 865-215-2675, or by e-mail at coldcase@knoxsheriff.org.