Lewis Adams was 43 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Wednesday, May 7, 2008. The Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit investigated, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Lewis Adams has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew the person who killed him, what time of day it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
His name is shared with a well-known figure from history: Lewis Adams, a founder of what became Tuskegee University, after whom a residence hall is named. Searches also turn up a North Carolina corrections official, a high school athlete and men named in unrelated court cases. None of them is the 43-year-old who died in Atlanta in May 2008, and that crowd of namesakes makes his own story harder to find.
He was killed on the same day as Randy Willis, 25, who died in west Atlanta. Nothing in the public record connects the two cases.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death just south of downtown Atlanta, an area of older neighborhoods close to the city's center. People who lived or worked there in early May 2008 may remember Lewis, and may remember the police activity that followed his death.
Atlanta, the capital of Georgia and the center of a metro area of more than 5 million people, recorded roughly 75 to 130 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017. Most victims in those years were young men, and most were killed with guns. Many killings from that period never led to an arrest, and the Post's 2018 investigation counted Atlanta among the cities with large numbers of unsolved homicides. At 43, Lewis Adams was older than most of the victims, and cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Lewis Adams could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Lewis Adams, saw him in the days before he died, or heard talk afterward of what happened, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (404-577-8477), which may pay a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest.
