Kathryn Adam - 1993 - Kansas

[LadyBlue]

Twenty years later, Salina murder case still unsolved

She paid for her gas and then backed out of the front door of a Salina convenience store with a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

Her brown hair was curled, and she was wearing a blue and white Kansas City Royals jacket. It was 4:33 a.m.

That morning two decades ago may have seemed about like any other since 35-year-old Kathryn Adam had separated from her husband and moved from Dickinson County to Salina. But it was different.

Over the next 20 years, an image of Adam captured on April 29, 1993, by a surveillance camera at Kwik Shop, 1727 W. Crawford, would appear on billboards, fliers and online missing-persons websites.

After Adam drove her L'eggs Hosiery delivery van out of the Kwik Shop parking lot, police think her next stop was a storage unit in west Salina where she kept an inventory of hosiery and stopped every morning before setting off on her route.

There, she was apparently overcome by an attacker while loading merchandise into her van.

Police found evidence of foul play at the storage unit the next day, after Adam's 16-year-old daughter reported that she'd been gone all night, said Lt. Scott Siemsen of the Salina Police Department.

Large pool of blood

A large pool of blood was found outside the storage building and a small amount of blood and bullet fragments were found inside the still-open unit, Siemsen said.

On the evening of April 30, her van was found parked at Russell's Restaurant, 649 Westport. The restaurant was closed for building repairs at the time.

The van was muddy on the outside, and inside police found evidence that Adam had not driven herself away from the storage unit. A large amount of blood in the back of the van — as well as blood samples collected at the storage unit — were found to have the same DNA as hair from Adam's hairbrush, Siemsen said.

Police think she was killed the day of her disappearance, and her name is one of six on a list of unsolved homicides dating back to 1977 in Salina, Siemsen said.

What hasn't been found in the 20 years since is Adam's body.
www.gctelegram.com/news/4-30-13-salina-unsolved-murders

[LadyBlue]

Mother's murder leaves woman with unanswered questions

It was 20 years ago -- on the morning of April 29, 1993 -- that her mother, 35-year-old Kathryn Adam, left for work and never came home. Salina police think she was murdered, but they have not been able to find her body or gather sufficient evidence to arrest anyone for the crime.

"I need to know -- I don't want to live the rest of my life wondering what happened," said Adam, now 36. "I need to know."

Adam, who no longer lives in the Salina area, agreed to be interviewed by the Journal, and the Journal agreed to refer to her by her maiden name.

It was Laura, at age 16, who called police April 30 to report that her mother had not returned to their apartment the night before. When police found evidence of foul play at the storage unit where her mother's L'eggs Hosiery inventory was kept, the teen's world fell apart.

In the two decades since, Laura has managed to build a new life. She graduated from the University of Kansas, and she and her husband now own a successful business.

But she said she has had no further contact with her father or any other member of her shattered family, and many of the decisions that made her the person she is today were shaped by the unsolved murder of her mother.

"There's a lot of questions in my mind about who could have done this," she said.

She said she believes it's possible that some members of her extended family may even suspect her.

"The family may think that I did it," she said. "I feel like I was dealt a major injustice, but I have nothing to hide."

Laura said she did not grow up in a happy home. From the time she was a small child, she said, her parents made it clear to her that neither of them wanted to be a parent, and she was forced to grow up quickly.

She said she didn't like the way her father treated her mother.

"They kept it behind closed doors, but I wasn't stupid; I knew what was going on," she said. "There were a lot of facades being played."

She said that at holiday family gatherings, they acted like everything was fine.

"Truly to this day I don't think the rest of the family knows the type of relationship my parents had or had with me," she said.

Laura said the pretense had an effect on the kind of person she became.

"I evolved into an adult who doesn't want to play games," she said. "I cannot act fake. I grew up around it. Not everyone's going to like me, and I'm OK with that. I cannot put on an act at all. If I'm upset, I can't hide it. If I don't like somebody, I can't hide it. I'm just not that way."

As she grew older, Laura said, she developed a bond with her mother, who helped coach her softball team. Her father, a truck driver, was gone a lot and mostly ignored her, she said.

"I was an athlete, and she enjoyed coming to my games and cheering me on," Laura said. "She was really great. My friends thought she was cool."

She said one of her best memories is of going with her parents and a friend to her first concert: Def Leppard at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan.

"It was one of the few things we did together," she said.

Laura said she was an honor student at Solomon High School who held a job and participated in volleyball, softball, track and weightlifting. Then, one day, her mother came home escorted by sheriff's deputies and informed her father that she and Laura were moving out.

"When you're 16, you don't think that could happen no matter how rough the marriage is," Laura said. She said her mother and father's marriage was "not a healthy relationship at all."

Capt. Brian Shea of the Saline County Sheriff's Office said deputies commonly perform 10- to 15-minute "civil standbys" as a public service. He said deputies stand by to prevent confrontations while an estranged significant other or roommate gathers essential belongings.

Laura said that she and her mother left the house quickly with little time to pack and moved to Salina. As a result, she said, she now has no photographs of her mother and no mementos of her childhood. She said the two things she has to remember her mother by are her mom's wedding ring and a card she gave to Laura a week before her murder.

Laura said she and her mother lived in Salina for about a month before Kathryn Adam disappeared.

She said her mother was fearful but still insisted on starting her work day in the early morning dark so that she could be home when Laura got home.

"I even said to her, 'Mom, this is not safe,' but she said, 'I want to get my day started so I can get home when you get home from sports,' " she said.

On April 30, 1993, after her mom hadn't returned home all night, Laura said she called her mother's co-workers, and they immediately told her to call the police. She said her mother's schedule had been predictable up to that point.

She said the first time she was interviewed by police she was "very much in shock," and she was second-guessing her perceptions of people.

She became a ward of the state at a meeting she attended with her father, a social worker, and prospective foster parents. She said that meeting was the last time she ever saw her father, who signed away his parental rights.

More can be found at link:
www.salina.com/news/daughter-4-25-13