On the evening of December 10, 2020, police in Bangor, Maine, received a 911 call about an unconscious man at a residence on Union Street. When officers and paramedics arrived at 1702 Union St. around 8:30 p.m., they found an injured and unresponsive man who was soon pronounced dead at the scene. The man was later identified as 28-year-old Syies Adams of Brooklyn, New York.
The following day, the state's chief medical examiner's office conducted an autopsy and determined that Adams' death was a homicide, caused by a single gunshot wound to the chest.
The investigation into the death of Syies Adams led authorities to identify another New York man, Khalid Harris, as a suspect. In May sued for Harris's arrest on a murder charge. The search for Harris continued for several months until he was located and apprehended in Queens, New York, on September 16, 2021, by a team of law enforcement officers including the New York City Police Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Marshal's Office. According to a witness, the shooting occurred during a fight between Adams and Harris that was reportedly related to a dispute over drug sales.
In August 2022, Khalid Harris, then 29, appeared in a courtroom at the Penobscot Judicial Center. He chose to enter an Alford guilty plea to a lesser charge of manslaughter, as part of an agreement with the Maine attorney general's office. By entering this plea, Harris did not admit to the crime but acknowledged that a jury would likely find him guilty. His defense attorney stated that had the case gone to trial, they would have argued self-defense. In exchange for his plea, the initial murder charge was dismissed. The judge sentenced Harris to 18 years in prison, with all but eight and a half years suspended, to be followed by four years of probation. During the sentencing, Syies Adams' sister, Lashae Adams, delivered a powerful impact statement, expressing the profound loss her family has endured.
