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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Well, I'm pretty sure that by the time this comes out, we will have done our live. Oh yeah, you're right. So it will either have been an epic disaster or amazing. I'm a little scared. I'm not gonna lie. I think hopefully it was good. I mean, we've prepared so much. I feel like it's going to be good. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine. Yeah.
Well, I'm speaking like we haven't done it yet, but it was our first one. I know. But you know what? For everyone who tuned in and for everyone who listened, I'm sure it was amazing and fun. And thank you so much for doing it. Seriously. I mean, I mean, this is like a dream come true. This is weird. I can't believe we were doing the live. I mean, it would have already come out, but we haven't done it yet. Right. But you know what it means if the live is over with? It means merch is now available.
- Live. - It means our merch is available for purchase right now. The link will be in the episode notes or in the description or wherever, and you can always just check our social media. But there is Strangey Dangy merch, there is Where Are the Cameras merch,
And then obviously just your basic murder with my husband merch. I'm so excited about this drop. We actually put so much effort into these designs, wanting to make them, you know, wearable, but also having to do with the podcast. And I'm, I like, this is my favorite merch we've done so far. And if you already bought merch while watching the live or before when you went to go buy your ticket for the live, it's being sent out. That's being shipped out now. Okay. Here, I guess we can just go right to your 10 seconds.
You know, the Bengals lost. So that was kind of sad. I mean, I wasn't that sad because it was kind of cool that LA won. I mean, I'm from California, so got to represent at some point.
But I was a little sad for Joe, but Joe will be back. So not a big deal. You said you're rooting for the Bengals, but during the whole game, you kept cheering for both teams. I was. I really was. He just wanted both to do good. I think it's because I really didn't have a team that I was like, oh, I really want them to win. It was a good game. That's all I cared about. Also, I got so many suggestions on different sour candy that people want me to buy and try. And so I feel like I need to make a video and
Try all the sour candy. You should. No, I'm not going to do that. But I am going to buy a bunch of new sour candy. I mean, you'll do it. You'll order them because Garrett, like our whole marriage has ordered random candy on the internet and then had it show up and be like, oh, this is this new sour candy that I should try. I've had good ones. I've had bad ones. So thank you everyone for the comments and suggestions on sour candy. And I guess before we get into it, I just wanted to say that Peyton and I really do read
YouTube comments, Instagram comments, podcast reviews, everything. So thank you so much for all the support there. Yeah, this reminds me that, you know, back when we were
beginning, I was able to respond to every single message that we were getting. But now it's just this family has grown so much and we just really don't have the bandwidth to do it anymore. But I do check them. I am feeling the love. I am seeing it. And I try to respond to as many as I can. Yeah. So if you don't get a response, we're sorry. But we do try to read majority of them at least. All right. Should we just jump into it? Let's do it.
Let's do it. All right. So our case sources for this week are Wikipedia, Unsolved.com, Unsolved Mysteries, Newspapers.com, APnews.com, Findagrave.com, Google Drive, WBIR.com, Sleuthsyndicate.com, Archive.knoxnews.com, and darkmatter.blogspot.com.
So in the true crime genre, there are many different channels of crime. We have missing, we have murdered, serial killers, infamous crimes, and so on. But there is one type of true crime case that has the largest Reddit threads, the most discussed and dissected, the type of case that brings out theory after theory and will never seem to stop intriguing people.
And that type of true crime case is adults who mysteriously go missing under suspicious circumstances. Okay. Almost like they disappeared following erratic, unexplainable, strange behavior. Like alien sort of things? Yeah. Was it human trafficking, unsolved murder, alien abduction, or did they willingly disappear? Either way, it's one of those things that can keep you up at night climbing deeper and deeper into the dark web down a rabbit hole to try and make sense of it all.
And today we will be discussing one of those cases. Oh, man. Okay, so our case this week starts in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Surrey has the second largest population in Canada after Vancouver and is primarily a suburban city. The date is December 28th, 1964, when Robert Dennis Blair Adams was born into this world.
His mother's name is Sandra Adams, and he actually has a brother named Tom Welland. He also has a stepfather. And as life goes on and Robert, who ends up going by Blair, grows up,
By 1995 and at the age of 31, he has found himself working for his stepfather in Frankfurt, Germany. Blair's stepfather actually owned a prefab construction company named SS Cedar Homes. You can actually still find this company website as SS Homes, but the dates on the website indicate that the company shut down in 2010.
I do want to clarify here that the one reference to this company also indicates it was in Surrey, British Columbia, not Germany. So I'm not sure how Blair ended up working for this company in Germany, but maybe it had multiple offices or locations. Either way, I think the fact that Blair was willing to leave Canada and
and move internationally impacts this story later on. Got it. So Blair is just enjoying his life in Germany, working for his stepfather when in November of 1995, he meets a German woman at a party and they begin dating.
And Blair's new girlfriend describes him as a gentleman and great boyfriend. But this isn't necessarily the reputation that everyone else in his Germany life is seeing him as. At this point in his life, Blair had been known to become aggressive or confrontational. He also had a small history with alcohol and substance abuse.
There were times that he expressed concern of people coming at him or spreading rumors about him, and it all just seemed kind of paranoid. The issue is, Blair's time as an adult up to this point was pretty secretive. There's not a lot out there to help make sense of the paranoia other than the possible substance abuse.
There's talk of maybe undiagnosed or unreported mental health crisis that led him to this behavior. But whatever it is, we know that although his girlfriend was fond of him in Germany, he definitely had made some enemies, gotten in some bar fights and whatnot. Wasn't that one missing story that we did in Germany as well, where he walked into the airport?
And took off? Oh, yeah. Was that in Germany? That was basically an episode full of these type of cases, right? Yeah, and was that in Germany? I don't know if it was Germany, but it was international. Okay, I can't remember. So by the summer of 1996, Blair had moved back to Canada and started a new job as a construction site foreman. We don't really know what happened in Germany, whether it was a peaceful move or it was just time to go back. But Blair really seemed to have...
back in Canada, a normal life with a job, friends, and was doing really well that summer. He had started actually attending Alcoholics Anonymous or AA, which friends credited to the upward direction Blair's life was going. Like he was just really getting things in control, taking control of his life. And according to Constable Wayne Rideout from the RCMP, Blair's new boss at his new job and the employees there liked his work and confirmed that he was like really,
really good at his job. He was a hard worker. He did a good job. But as time went on, basically by the dead middle of summer in 1996 around June, people began to notice that Blair was growing uncharacteristically careless at work. His work ethic was definitely sliding. And on top of that, he had stopped attending AA.
Now we don't have any reports that his absence from AA was because Blair had started drinking again. So I do want to clarify that. We only know that he had stopped going around the same time that he began struggling at work, but none of this is really a huge deal. It's not like Blair's work was slipping enough that he needed to be fired or that all of his friends and family couldn't be around him anymore because he stopped attending AA, but there's definitely something going on. And then randomly on,
All right. So things are already getting...
A little weird. And also in the safe deposit box was thousands of dollars more in jewelry, gold and platinum, which this is 96, which I mean, I don't really know the timeline of money, but to me that seems like a lot of money now. So imagine in the 90s.
Blair then told his mother the same day that he emptied all of this out that something was bothering him, but she didn't know what it was. He then took an unexpected trip to Curtinay, British Columbia to visit his uncle. But because of the short notice, Blair's uncle was not home.
At this point, Blair's not talking to a lot of people in his life, but most don't even know that something is off. He is the only person that knows he emptied out all of his money at this point. So two days after he empties out all of his bank, tells his mom something's wrong and immediately just goes on this surprise trip to his uncle's.
On July 7th, 1996, Blair gets into his Chevrolet Chevette and drives it to the Canadian-American border in hopes of boarding a ferry from Victoria to Seattle. Although his hopes was to cross the border, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied Blair entry into the United States of America. Hmm.
They actually profiled him as a possible drug trafficker because he was a single man with all of his cash, jewelry and gold with him. They also noted that Blair was acting anxious upon arrival. And on top of all that, Blair actually had a prior conviction for drugs and assault that was discovered while he was trying to cross the border. So I guess I'm trying to figure out that he crossed like on foot, like.
No. So he wanted to take the ferry. Okay. So I think he would take his Chevy parking on the ferry and cross with it. Correct. Basically in car. Yes. So they searched him, I assume.
I assume they did because they found all of the stuff and that was listed in the report. Now, there is a discrepancy here of how many times Blair would continue to try to cross over to America. Some say five different attempts and some say three. But either way, Blair spends the next couple of days trying.
trying to get over, even attempting at one point to cross on foot. No way. And during these sporadic attempts, Blair is still stuck in Canada and just doing odd, unexplainable things. On July 8th, the next day, 1996, Blair drives to his workplace and randomly quits.
According to the Unsolved Mysteries episode on this case, he attempts to pick up his final paycheck, but for some reason he doesn't get it.
So he's trying to get more money. And it was on this day that he also tried to purchase a round trip ticket to Germany at a travel service for around $1,700. Which, like I said, I don't really understand money. But back in the, I mean, that's a pricey ticket now. So I feel like back in the day in the 90s, that is an expensive plane ticket. Blair actually ended up buying the ticket, but then immediately requested a refund the same day. Hmm.
And according to his old girlfriend in Germany, she had not been expecting him. So we don't think he was trying to go there to see her. After this, Blair drove to a friend's house and asked his friend to help take him to the border. But it was late at this point. And so his friend turned him down. It was by dawn of the next day, July 9th, 1996, that Blair was spotted wandering around near the border on foot.
This is when he actually attempted to cross on foot and had been denied once more. Now, I want to note here that by this point, Blair has been manically running around for basically three days straight. Why does he want to get...
In the U.S. so bad. Like something's obviously going on. He hasn't told anybody. Yeah. So he's buying plane tickets, canceling them, driving to this friend's, driving to uncle's, trying to get to the ferry and trying to cross multiple times, even once on foot. Do you know if he had a good relationship with his family? Yes. Does it say anything? Yes. I mean, it doesn't necessarily specify the type of relationship, but they did know him. He had just talked to his mom and said something was wrong. So they were at least on speaking terms and seeing each other.
Interesting. Okay. And did he have any siblings? Just one brother. Okay. So the Pacific Highway Border Crossing authorities noted when they saw him trying to cross on foot that Blair actually had scratches all over his hands and feet. And they wrote that in the reports.
They ended up actually taking him into custody because he matched the description of a suspect who had stolen a blue car and Vancouver near where he was trying to cross earlier that day. But Blair seemed confused when taken in and interrogated and was subsequently released from custody when there was no evidence that linked him to the theft.
But later on in the case, one of Blair's friends would actually come forward and inform authorities that she had seen Blair driving a blue car that day that it was stolen. Okay. Which leaves speculation whether or not it was actually him. They never found the real person. But no one will ever know. Right. Hola. ¿Cómo está? Hola, ¿cómo estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain, and live there for the rest of your...
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Dot com code husband. CBDistillery.com code husband. So anyways, after being released from custody, Blair drives his own Chevrolet Chevette to the Vancouver International Airport and parks it. He then makes his way to the rental car counter and rents a Nissan Altima. He uses this Altima to drive to the border and once again attempts to cross over into America.
It was during this final attempt that Blair Adams finally succeeded on July 9th. Oh, wow. Literally the same day that he was taken into custody for suspicion of theft. Okay. And I note this because once again, I'm trying to show you, number one, how manic and random the day is.
And number two, if you thought your day was busy, like Blair is on another level. He's trying to cross the border on foot, gets taken into custody, gets questioned, gets released, drives to the airport, rents a car, and then drives back to the border again. So he made it through and... Yes, so he makes it through. He finally gains access over into America and immediately drives his rented Nissan to the Seattle airport. Yes.
He parks the Altima and enters the airport where he attempts to buy an overnight one-way ticket to Washington, D.C. for $800. Now, the airport ticket worker informs Blair that, you know, that's fine. He can purchase the one-way ticket. But if he actually buys a round-trip ticket, it's only $400, so half the price of his one-way ticket.
They tell him that even if he doesn't plan on taking the returning flight, it would still be smarter to purchase the round trip ticket. Blair refuses and purchases the $800 one-way ticket to Washington, D.C. immediately after crossing the border. I don't think it's that strange that he refused that. I mean, financially, yeah, obviously smarter. But I mean, I've done things where I'm like, no, no, no, it's fine. Just, you know what I'm saying? Yes.
So after flying during the night, because it was a red-eye, because that whole previous day he had been doing what I just described and now takes a red-eye, Flair arrives at the Dulles International Airport at 5 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10th, 1996.
He immediately makes his way to the rental car counter and rents a white Toyota Camry and begins a seven-hour drive to Knoxville, Tennessee around 6.45 a.m. Where is this guy going? And he has...
has not slept. I mean, maybe he slept on the flight, but like, holy cow, it's been three to four days of this man just like running around. And obviously I'm sure everyone is thinking the same exact thing. The reason it doesn't make sense is because he could just fly to wherever he's going. Correct. You know what I'm saying?
So it's been only five days since Blair initially emptied all of his savings and money out. Around 10.15 a.m. while on his way to Knoxville, Tennessee, Blair backs his rental car into another man's vehicle near Zion Crossroads on U.S. Highway 250 in Troy, Virginia.
The accident was small and caused minor damage. The man who Blair ran into ended up telling detectives that Blair was really nice during the whole thing, but he did seem in a hurry to get out of there like he had somewhere to be.
Around 5.30 p.m. that day, Blair arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee and stopped at a gas station on Strawberry Plains Pike. During this gas station stop, Blair portrayed some strange behavior that alerted the employees enough that they remembered it.
A gas station clerk actually ended up calling an interstate repair service driver named Gerald Sapp after Blair was claiming that once he got out of his car and got gas, he couldn't get his car started again.
Gerald made his way to the gas station and when he investigated the issue the reason Blair couldn't get his wrecked and rented Toyota Camry to start was because he was using the key to his rented Nissan Altima that he left back at the Seattle airports. But he obviously has the Camry key as well correct? Right. So he had to he's been driving it. Yeah so Gerald explains that
to Blair. He explains to Blair that the reason the car won't start is because he's using the wrong car key, but Blair wouldn't listen to him. Blair insisted that the Nissan key was all he had and that this whole time he'd been using that Nissan key to drive this car.
Gerald kindly explains to Blair that that's not actually possible because he had already driven the Toyota Camry almost seven hours. And in order to do that, he would have had to use the correct key. That is definitely here somewhere. The key's somewhere at this gas station or he wouldn't have been able to pull into the gas station in the first place.
Gerald noted that Blair was intent on dismissing anything he said and insisted that he did not have the key and noted that Blair was acting like, quote, he wasn't all there. I want to note here that the Knox County Sheriff website states that Blair simply locked himself out of the car. And that's why Gerald showed up.
But every other source explains this misplaced key story. So I'm just going with that. Okay. Either way, Gerald Sapp arranged for a tow truck to come pick up the Camry because they can't get started because they don't have the key. I mean, at this point, it just sounds like he's on drugs, but I don't know. Who knows? You never know in these type of stories. You never know. It's just, it's already so weird. Yes. So the tow truck comes to pick up the Camry to take it to an auto shop. And then...
And then Gerald actually drives Blair himself to a Fairfield Inn nearby to stay the night because now he doesn't have a car. Once Blair and Gerald arrive at the nearby Fairfield Inn, Blair realized that he had actually left his bag behind at the gas station. And so Gerald dropped him off, drove back to the gas station to retrieve the bag, and then dropped the bag back off to Blair at the Fairfield Inn.
Now, during the 40 minutes that this took, Blair can be seen on surveillance camera at the Fairfield Inn pacing in and out of the hotel lobby five times. So he's definitely not just like going in, plopping a seat and waiting. He's displaying anxious behavior. I feel like I am listening to a crazy episode of Ozarks. Now, you haven't seen this. No, I have not seen Ozarks. If people have seen this, they'll know what I'm talking about. So.
So Blair finally checked into the Fairfield Inn Hotel at 7.37 p.m.,
The hotel front desk worker named Tika Hartsfield noted that during the whole check-in process, Blair was, quote, paranoid, that he was very nervous, agitated, and looking around like someone was coming for him, even though nobody else was in the hotel. What in the world? After Tika handed Blair the key to his hotel room, Blair grabbed it, put it in his pocket, and...
And instead of walking to the elevators, he walked out the front doors of the hotel and never came back inside. And Blair Adams was never seen alive again that we know of. That's it? That's the whole story? No, there's more to the story. But that's the whole story of him before the last time we've seen him. Okay. So he was gone and this was 1996. He's been acting quite strange. He left the hotel and then no one knows anything after that.
So the next day, July 11th, 1996, around 7 a.m., two construction workers stopped at their work site of the under construction hotel at 7471 Crossword Boulevard. Their construction site was off the Strawberry Plains Pike exit for Interstate 40 near the gas station and Fairfield Inn.
Currently today, the address to this place, because of course I had to look it up, is labeled as a travel lodge by Windham Knoxville East. It was previously a country inn. Now, I am unsure of the timeline, but it made me wonder if it was in the process of turning that country into travel lodge at the point in our story because it's under construction in our story. The two workers were combing through the site when they noticed something on the ground in the abandoned parking lot.
They walked over and immediately called 911. Blair Adams was discovered dead laying in the middle of the parking lot with his belongings scattered around him. Okay, and this was how long after he went missing? Just the next morning. Like he walked out of the hotel, was never seen again. The next morning is dead. When Knox County Sheriff Jimmy J.J. Jones responded to the scene back in 1996, he was actually lieutenant over the major crimes unit at that point. He
He noted that the victim, who we know is Blair, but they don't, had his pants pulled down around his ankles. But according to JJ, it looked like somebody else had pulled them down. Now, I don't know how you draw that conclusion. Yeah, I was going to ask how is it possible to know that? They didn't mention it. All they said was that they believed that someone else pulled his pants down.
I mean, I guess there's certain ways if maybe you don't unbutton your button or something. Or there's scratches. Or there's scratches. Or I don't know. So Blair's shoes were off and laying near him and his socks were stuffed inside of his shoes. Like they're laying in the parking lot by him. Also laying next to him was his Fairfield hotel room key that he just got in the night before.
and the missing Camry car key that landed him at the Fairfield Hotel in the first place because he stated that he couldn't find it. So the missing car key... It was in his pocket. Well, it's laying next to him in the parking lot. Got it. There was also a duffel bag next to Blair's body that contained maps and travel receipts on the ground and scattered all around him was the cash that Blair had been carrying. And when I mean scattered around him, I mean like...
Was any of it taken? Do we know? No. So police also discovered a fanny pack with nearly five ounces of gold bars, gold and platinum, along with coins, jewelry, more keys, and a pair of sunglasses.
The fanny pack was laying on the ground, unzipped and untouched, along with all of the cash. That makes zero sense. Right. Zero sense. It's not where your head was probably going. No, not at all. So the medical examiner estimated the time of death was around 3.30 a.m.,
roughly four hours before his body was discovered. This time of death actually matches a nearby worker who was either a security guard or a construction worker, and this worker claimed to have heard a scream around that time in the middle of the night but thought that it belonged to a woman.
Now I'm confused here because if someone did hear a woman scream, did they not go investigate it? Maybe it wasn't reported on because we know that that happens, but there was nothing that came of this. I mean, that's hard. I mean, people scream in our neighborhood. I mean,
Yeah. And every time I'm like, oh my gosh, are they okay? And I go look out the window. You know what I mean? People scream a lot. But you probably wouldn't. It really is, I think, hard to distinguish the difference sometimes. Right. Obviously, you always want people to report things, but it's got to be so hard to distinguish the difference. Either way, I wish the tip led somewhere, but it doesn't. So that's all we have with that information. The autopsy performed by the University of Tennessee Medical Center revealed that Blair had many cuts and abrasions on his body.
The Knox County Sheriff's Department speculated immediately that some of the wounds came from fighting off an attack. So they say the position of the wounds looked like it was in a defensive manner. Okay, so cause of death. So Blair Adams' cause of death was ruled as sepsis that was a result of a perforation in his stomach from a violent blow or repeated hitting that
caused a rupture in his stomach lining. Do they know if it was from a bat? If it was from someone's fist, they know like an object, right? So there was, they don't know an object. They said maybe it was just like continued punching to his stomach or one really, really hard kick.
But there was a wound to his forehead, like blunt force, that police deterred was caused by a crowbar or a club. Now, neither weapon was found near the scene, but because it was a construction area, police are like, well, a weapon like that might have been on site and easy to grab or find.
Blair was also believed to have been sexually assaulted, although no DNA evidence was found to corroborate that. And the only evidence that like the police developed this theory on was that he was found with his pants pulled down, according to them, by someone else.
In fact, the only physical evidence that was at the scene that didn't belong to Blair was a strand of someone else's hair that was found in his hand, which is like the worst type of DNA evidence you can have at a crime scene because it's not very reliable. Oh, okay. Wait, why? What do you mean? I could be wrong, but hair is really hard to match with 100% certainty. Unless you have like a bunch of it, maybe? Well, no. Also...
In order for you to get DNA off of hair, you have to have the follicle attached to the hair. Oh, so someone's hair just breaks off. You can't grab any DNA from that. So we don't even know if there is a follicle attached to the hair. They didn't list, which they don't necessarily have to tell us that because if they have DNA, they might not want people knowing they have it. But either way, it's just one of those things that it's not like just having spit. Spit is spit. Hair can be up in the air about whether it's going to be helpful or not. Okay.
According to 10 News, there was a news piece done by David Davenport, and he claimed that there was some DNA evidence recovered from the hair, but there's been no profile match so far. So maybe he's indicating that there was a follicle, except for not many sources have reported on that.
I noticed that this DNA evidence is rarely talked about. The only other sources that actually even discuss possible DNA evidence is Knoxville News Centennial mentioned it, and so did a blog about this case. Now, according again to 10 News, it was also reported that Blair might have had road rash on one of his hands.
like he had maybe fallen out of a vehicle or somehow hit the pavement at a fast speed like he was running and fell. Either way, his hand was all scraped up and they think it's road rash. So after July 12th, the day after he's found, 1996, more was learned about Blair's life once they made the connection that the victim was him.
Blair's mother, Sandra, originally speculated that Blair was going to the United States to watch the 1996 Summer Olympics that were happening in Atlanta.
But that was before he turned up dead. Plus, this is where I think the fact that Blair had lived overseas and internationally already comes into play. Because once you've traveled that far, it's not that alarming to people in your life that you're going to go again. You know what I mean? Like he's lived overseas before. It might not be that weird that he's going to the United States to watch the Olympics if that's what she thought.
But after his death, Sandra was the one who reported that Blair had been acting strangely before he was leaving and had stopped attending AA. She also told police that Blair had told her people were spreading rumors about him, but whenever she tried to get more information, he told her that he shouldn't tell her. So she's like, he was acting super closed off, talking about how other people are coming for him, but I can never get more information out of him. What the heck? And there was no drugs found in his system? Mm-mm.
Oh my gosh. So if he wasn't on drugs, then I, then... There was no drugs or alcohol found in his system. So if he wasn't on drugs, it seems to me the only viable explanation at this point is that someone is after him. Like that this paranoia is real. Yes. I mean, I guess he could be having some sort of mental health crisis or something along those lines as well. Exactly. And that is completely possible. So people are like, well, what about this option? But Blair's mom feels like...
he didn't have any mental health issues, but typically manic erratic behavior, grandiose thoughts, or appearing rushed or anxious can be associated with certain mental health diagnosis or crisis. So, I mean, it's not hard to draw that conclusion. Blair's brother, Terry Welland was so devastated by Blair's death because he really felt like Blair had been turning his life around. Um, until about that last month and everyone in Blair's life felt this way. They were like,
Man, he was just really starting to make his way up to really hit that new era of his life. And then this happens and it's so unexplainable. He just, he took all his money out.
He took off to the US. He flew to DC, drove to Tennessee and is now dead. Ends up dead. Just doesn't make any sense. After having someone else drive him to a hotel because he's claiming he doesn't have his car key, leaving him without a car, but he had the car key on his person because it was found on him later. And not only is he dead, but whoever killed him,
Didn't take any money. I mean, suicide isn't even a question here. Police don't think this is suicide because of the cause of death. Yeah.
So what happened between the time of Blair leaving the Fairfield Inn at 7.37 p.m. and then him dying around 3.30 a.m.? We don't know, but here is what investigators figure out while trying to answer that exact question. They noted during an interview much later, in 2010, that a composite sketch of a man had actually been made in Blair's case in the beginning.
The sketch came about from two women who claim to have witnessed Blair speaking to this man outside of the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Knoxville. So these two women come forward and they tell police, we saw Blair at Cracker Barrel talking to this man. And then they created a sketch of that man. Okay.
According to Google Maps, if using actual streets, the walk from the Fairfield Inn to the parking lot where Blair was found would take roughly 19 minutes. They are very close. They're just on opposite sides of the freeway. And then one would pass the Cracker Barrel on the way if making that walk. So the Cracker Barrel was actually right next to the Fairfield Inn and you would pass it on the street that you would take to make your way to the parking lot. Yeah.
the assumption is maybe Blair walked out of the hotel to go and find dinner and ended up at the cracker barrel down the street where two women saw him talking to a man. So during his autopsy, I told you that they didn't find any drugs or alcohol in his system, but they had found in his stomach contents, some lettuce, some meat and some shrimp. So I'm
I mean, his stomach contents did indicate that he had eaten something before he died. Had this been the man that Blair was originally running from, the man that these two women had seen him talking to?
Or did he by chance run into new problems at Cracker Barrel and this had nothing to do with his paranoia? Or maybe the witnesses had the wrong man and it wasn't even Blair talking to a man outside Cracker Barrel. Another option police had to consider was that the area off the highway where Blair was found was
also served as a truck stop and attracted individuals with a very transient lifestyle. It was also known as a hotbed of illegal activity. So maybe something had gone wrong with some type of boss from said legal activity ranging from sexual to drug related. My only personal issue with this theory is that so much cash and gold was left at the scene.
And the way it was scattered and dumped around him almost feels personal. Yeah. I feel like if this was random, something that just happened that night, the cash would have been taken. Even if it's personal, like you take the cash. Right. Like someone takes it. I mean, unless you're like...
you know, the kill has nothing. It's just such a personal reason that it has nothing to do with this. And there's also something to be said about killing someone and then laying the cash around and being like, you think you, you, you know, maybe have all of this, but you're just here laying dead inside it. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Um, but obviously I could be wrong. That's just my personal unprofessional opinion coming from someone who listens and watches a bunch of true crime.
Blair's actions of changing flights and travel plans last minute, changing cars multiple times and checking into a hotel that he wasn't actually staying at definitely could imply that he believed someone was after him and that he was trying to throw them off his trail. And to me, that's my number one theory. I think that like the back and forth, back and forth, trying to go to Germany and then trying to get to the U.S. implies that he felt like someone was following him.
Friends admit that he did say this often and witnesses report him acting paranoid, but there was never any cooperating evidence found to support this theory. There were no threats. There were no messages. There was no trace of Blair involved in illegal activity that could land him here. He wasn't in trouble with any, you know, drug related incidents, nothing. The prior history with the drug and assault conviction was not mentioned publicly in the investigation into Blair's death.
So I can't tell you that the police have looked into whether Blair's past was coming back to haunt him or not, or if this had anything to do with his death, but they totally could have looked into that. Yeah.
I'm also unsure if Knoxville County Police and Surrey Police in British Columbia have compared notes or have been in contact for this investigation. So I don't know if they've talked and said this is his history here. What do you have here? I have no idea. Blair's cremated remains lay in Victory Memorial Park in British Columbia, Canada, according to his find a grave memorial.
Blair's mother, Sandra, did do a brief interview for the Unsolved Mysteries episode on this case.
She announced that she had accepted her son's death while still really curious about what had actually happened. She's not actively involved or in contact with Knoxville police. She says that she, you know, just needed that peace that comes with acceptance and moving forward. So although she really does want to know what happened, she doesn't let it continue to take over her life as she tries to figure out what's going on.
So what really happened to Blair Adams in July of 1996? If you have any information about this unsolved case, you can call 865-215-7450. And that is the unexplainable murder of Blair Adams. Weird. I don't really, I don't know. I don't really have any theories on this one or thoughts. It just...
There's not enough evidence to even get me thinking about it that much. You know what I'm saying? I think it's like all of those cases. I mean, this is kind of similar to me for the Elisa Lam case, which is the woman who we saw that security footage of her in the hotel and then she ended up in the water tank. It's just like, is this...
mental health because I don't want to ever say that mental health can lead. You know what I mean? The reason I say no is because he was killed. Right. He was murdered. It's not like he...
Right. Killed himself for committed suicide. You know, he was, he was killed. But it is such a strange manner of death. Yes. Because it's not like he was beaten anywhere else. I mean, he did have a little blunt force trauma to his head, but other than that, they said he had scratches on his body. But also if you remember the border police said that he had scratches on his body days earlier. So were those from an earlier thing that was happening or were those from the attack?
Yeah, I don't know. It's a crazy one. Either way, the case is still unsolved and there's still a lot of information that we don't have. So if you do know anything, please contact the number that I said earlier. And that is the case of Blair Adams.
Thank you guys so much for being here and thank you for supporting Murder With My Husband as much as you guys do. This really is a dream. It's a dream thing for us to be doing and we wouldn't be here without you. We will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.