An extended family member of two brothers charged in the disappearance of Holly Bobo says one of the men — Dylan Adams — is mentally challenged and has been unfairly targeted by investigators.
Moss Miller is a first cousin of the mother of Zachary and Dylan Adams.
Miller said Zachary Adams' drug addiction left him unpredictable and violent. He said the 26-year-old younger brother, Dylan Adams, is "a grown man with the IQ of a 10-year-old."
Miller spoke with The Jackson Sun this week about Zachary and Dylan Adams. He also spoke about the two homes on Adams Lane in Decatur County that have been targeted in searches by police, the drug life that he said fueled Zachary Adams' violence and how these problems tore at the family long before Bobo's disappearance in 2011.
Miller provided details about the TBI investigation around 235 Adams Lane and the Holladay-based group of Zachary Adams, Jason Autry and Shayne Austin referred to as the "A-Team" based on the first letter of their last names.
Miller said he and some family members are concerned about Dylan Adams' arrest, which they said took Dylan away from what they called a "witness protection program" or "safe house" in Memphis, although court and jail records simply listed Dylan Adams in recent months as being in federal custody.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine said Tuesday afternoon that the agency could not confirm that Dylan Adams was in any such program or safe house.
Why talk now?
Miller, president of Miller Automotive, a group of three car dealerships in Madison and Henderson counties, said he is the first cousin of Cindy Adams, the mother of Zachary and Dylan Adams. He said he and Cindy have remained close.
Dylan's arrest forced him to speak, he said.
"Dylan has always been pushed aside," he said. "He has never developed. He has the mental ability of a 10-year-old, with an IQ in the low 70s."
The TBI has said agents developed information that on April 13, 2011, Dylan Adams disposed of items he knew to be of "evidentiary value to the case" related to Bobo's abduction and death. The TBI did not identify the evidence he is accused of disposing of.
Dylan Adams is charged with tampering with evidence. Zachary Adams is charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder.
An arrest affidavit filed in the Decatur County Courthouse gave only a broad view into the agency's reason for Dylan Adams' arrest.
"On September 17, 2014, this agent heard Dylan Adams tell another agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation that on April 13, 2011, Dylan Adams disposed of item(s) he knew possessed evidentiary value relating to Holly Bobo," the report said. "This offense did occur in Decatur County."
Miller said Dylan Adams would do anything anyone told him to do. "If somebody told him to do something, he just did it. 'Here, go throw this away.' He wouldn't know why," Miller said.
Background
Miller said that to his knowledge there was no trauma in Zachary Adams' life that led to his drug abuse, which is detailed in a criminal history that also includes violence and theft.
"What causes anybody to do it?" he said. "Just peer pressure. What causes the people we see on meth, they make out of, what, battery acid? What would compel somebody to do that? I guess it's just the thrill of getting high. Why do people drink? I guess they drink to feel good."
He said Zachary Adams used drugs before his father Timothy died in a car accident in July 2003.
Miller said that in Dick Adams, Zachary's grandfather, Zachary found someone who would continually pay to get him out of trouble and that this concerned most of the family.
The Jackson Sun left a message for Dick Adams at his place of work but the call was not returned.
"Dick's a very good man, a good, stable, family man," Miller said. "I'm sure that's what he was, just thought he was loving his grandson by getting him out of trouble. Zachary had no accountability."
Violent incidents at the Adams home were "mostly all drug-related" or involved "trying to get drugs," Miller said.
"Cindy did what Dick and the rest of them did," Miller said. "She just kind of covered up for Zach."
He said dealing with Zachary's drug problems is what broke up Cindy's marriage with Joseph King II. Cindy Adams declined to comment for this story. The Jackson Sun has not been able to reach King.
"He finally just got tired of that and left because of that mainly," Miller said.
An arrest affidavit filed at the Decatur County Courthouse said Adams was 19 years old when he "recklessly shot his mother, Cindy King, in the knee with a Glock 9mm pistol ... on Feb. 7, 2004."
Joseph King, who was then Adams' stepfather, and Cindy sought an order of protection. The petition for the protection order said they had two other children, John Dylan Adams, then 15, and Justin Clifford King, then 18, and that the family was afraid of Zachary Adams.
"We are in fear of our lives," they said in the court documents. "He shot his mother point blank with a 9mm Glock. He is a danger to us and the community."
Zachary Adams pleaded guilty to assault. He was sentenced to 11 months and 29 days in jail, which was suspended except for six months, and he was allowed to serve that time in rehab.
Adams was ordered by Judge C. Creed McGinley to attend drug and alcohol treatment at the Jackson Area Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency (JACOA) in September 2004.
Credit was given for 88 days already served in jail, and up to six months' credit was given for inpatient treatment and/or long-term transitional living at JACOA.
Miller said Adams shot his mother after she refused to give him money. "And he pulled a gun, and when she slapped the gun, he shot her in the leg," he said.
"It was an act of, 'give me some money,' 'well you can't have it,' 'well, I'm going to make you give me some money,'" Miller said.
Following the shooting, Miller said, Cindy fell into bad health and could hardly walk. She was a school teacher and "she had gotten in a real unstable mindset," he said.
Miller said Zachary Adams' threats to his grandparents, such as an incident on June 16, 2005, where he threatened to shoot Dick and grandmother Becky Adams with a shotgun, were also likely over drugs.
Adams Lane
Miller said there are two houses on Adams Lane in Decatur County, about 100 feet apart. One that belongs to Dick Adams and one is where Zachary Adams lived.
Miller said that in the past Zachary had worked and had a productive lifestyle. Dylan Adams would stay with his mother at times and his grandfather at times, and "I'm sure he was there with his brother," Miller said.
"Of course, Dylan was close to him and that's how Dylan probably got on drugs," he said. "And that's probably what happened to him in that Lexington deal. Dylan wanted attention in all the wrong places."
The "Lexington deal" to which Miller referred involved a Sept. 16, 2013, indictment that charges that Dylan Adams knowingly "possessed, received, concealed, stored, bartered, sold and disposed of a stolen firearm" on or about July 13, 2013, along with a Jason Kilzer.
The indictment said a .38-caliber revolver was shipped and transported in interstate commerce with knowledge that it was stolen. Dylan Adams also was charged with receiving and possessing the firearm through interstate commerce with the serial number removed, obliterated or altered.
He was charged with aiding and abetting Kilzer and giving Kilzer the gun after knowing it was illegal for Kilzer to own the gun.
The indictment said Dylan Adams was an unlawful user of controlled substances or an addict.
Federal court records say Dylan Adams is being represented in the federal case by M. Diane Smothers, a federal public defender, but Miller said Dylan has never seen Smothers. Miller said a family member was able to speak with Dylan as late as this weekend.
"One cousin had told me that the first time they took him to Memphis that they kept him up all night, would not give him anything to eat or drink," Miller said. "And finally he said, 'What do you want me to say?'"
Miller said family members had talked to Dylan and said that he was in a witness protection program, in a safe house and had a job.
Miller said Dylan told family members: "They just came and arrested me. I don't know what they were doing. I don't know what they arrested me for."
Miller said the family knew Zachary Adams was involved with drugs and that he ran with a group who called themselves the "A-Team." All of them had last names that started with A, but he said Dylan was not involved with the group.
"From my understanding, it was a pretty rough bunch — that they were into drugs, stealing and different stuff," Miller said.
"Naturally, being family, close kin folks, you hate it for anybody, regardless of what their nature and demeanor is and what they've done in the past, but nobody was, I mean the mom and grandmom and all were remorseful, but from the beginning no one ever believed (Zach) actually committed the crime," Miller said.
Miller said he was in Decatur County last weekend and spoke with family members who said after the TBI found Bobo's remains this month they returned to Zachary Adams' home and cut out the floor with a chainsaw, cut out the walls, ripped out the carpet and took a mattress.
"Someone has perpetrated this crime," Miller said. "We don't think it was one of our family members that did it. So far as we know, there has been no evidence that Zach killed her. There has been no evidence in his house. There's never been anything that's come about, that we know, to show that he killed this girl.
"It needs to be justice, a fair justice, not a lynching," Miller said.
Worst-case scenario
Miller said the worst-case scenario is that Zachary Adams could somehow be involved in Bobo's disappearance, but still, he said, there is no way Dylan Adams could have done anything on his own that he was not directed or felt threatened to do.
"I don't think he actually comprehends what is going on," Miller said.
He said the family believes the TBI targeted Zachary Adams because there was an informant in prison, a member of the "A-Team" not yet indicted.
Miller said the family is suspicious of Shayne Austin's possible role in Bobo's disappearance because court documents indicate prosecutors plan to indict Austin, who previously had been granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation.
The state voided the immunity agreement because Austin was not completely truthful and forthcoming, according to an email from Assistant District Attorney General Beth Boswell to Austin's lawyer, Luke Evans. The email was sent on March 27.
"When we indict your client, I will give you a courtesy call informing you," Boswell told Evans in the email.
Austin has not been charged in the case.
"We need to find the person who actually did this crime, and if it's Zach, so be it, but if it's not, they need to find the right person," Miller said. "Zach's life's destroyed now anyway, but it was before all this happened, but Dylan's not that way. Dylan can still be a productive part of society, if they leave him alone."?
