On a September day in 1985, the life of Thomas DeWayne Adkins, a 29-year-old White male from Fairfield, Iowa, was cut tragically short. It was September 14th, and Adkins had gone squirrel hunting with a close friend, 24-year-old Robert Alan Tisor, in the Van Buren Wildlife Area near Douds. What was meant to be a day of outdoor recreation ended in a fatal gunshot wound to Adkins' head.
According to Tisor, the shooting was a horrific accident. He claimed that he mistook Adkins, who had a long ponytail and was wearing a baseball cap, for a squirrel and fired his. 22 caliber Ruger rifle. However, the events that followed the shooting raised suspicions among Adkins' family. Tisor's account of the incident to the authorities was reportedly inconsistent.
After Adkins was taken to the Van Buren County Memorial Hospital, Tisor took Adkins' vehicle and was gone for several hours. When he returned, the car had been thoroughly cleaned. Adding to the family's unease, Adkins' wallet and a small amount of marijuana that had been in the vehicle were missing. Despite these troubling circumstances, the official ruling on Thomas Adkins' death was accidental. No criminal charges were ever filed against Robert Alan Tisor.
The decision left Thomas's wife, Sherri, and their two young children with a lifetime of unanswered questions and a sense of unresolved justice. Years later, in an attempt to find some clarity, Adkins' daughter, Kaylea, tried to obtain her father's autopsy report. She was informed that because the death had been classified as an accident, the case files had been discarded after a decade. The family continues to be haunted by the lingering doubts surrounding the official explanation of their loved one's death.
