Background
“It was the most interesting and the strangest case in my entire 31-year career so far.”
These were the words of Knox County Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones when describing the bizarre murder of 31-year-old Surrey, British Columbia, resident Blair Adams.
On July 11, 1996, authorities in Knox County, Tennessee, responded to a report of a vagrant sleeping in the parking lot of a hotel that was under construction off I-40, just outside of Knoxville.
However, when police arrived, they made a grim discovery. The man who had been mistaken for a sleeping vagrant was, in reality, the battered corpse of Blair Adams. Adams had no known ties to Tennessee and no known reason for visiting. In addition, aside from a single strand of hair recovered on Blair’s body, there was no physical evidence at the scene.
Blair was described as being “half-nude” when he was found. His pants had been removed, likely by another person. He was also found in possession of thousands of dolla…
