The FBI in Lexington says it can’t help.
SLED in Columbia says it supports the official version of what happened.
Current and former law enforcement officers say they don’t have the jurisdiction.
Most of them advise getting a lawyer - the price for someone who specializes in this kind of thing starts at $75,000.
That is something, so far, beyond the reach of Tootie McGowan as she continues to investigate the death of her son, K.J. Adams.
However, once she posted what’s shown below on social media, well, now people have started talking. They are “all over” something called Upstate Teapot. “They” are providing substantial information about who could be considered a “person of interested” - if anybody were still interested.
“K.J. was a happy, go lucky, a people person,” Tootie told me. At his funeral, so many people came up to her and talked about K.J., her oldest of 5 children, soon to be 6 - Tootie’s expected birthing day is Sept. 3 - “this child is a blessing from K.J.”
When Tootie came to my office last Wednesday for the interview that we had set up by phone, she brought a book-length volume of paperwork that shows the sorry saga of what started as a homicide investigation and, for some reason, morphed into a suicide. “He was my right hand. I can’t understand why they took him away from me.
“I just want someone to hear me - he didn’t kill himself.”
The autopsy says he did, with a rifle shot to the chest locked in his car, a white 2018 Chrysler 300, which has since been disposed of, without Tootie having a chance as the next of kin to retrieve it from Laurens County Sheriff’s Office evidence empoundment.
It was inside a secured, fenced area of the evidence facility right beside the Johnson Detention Center. “I would go there and sit there and look at K.J.’s car. It made me think there was some hope.”
But then something happened (this is a familiar refrain in this long and twisted story). K.J.’s birthday was May 6, 2024, and the family and friends had a balloon launch. On May 7 the car was gone and two men who early on had been connected on social media to K.J.’s death had been taken into custody the previous day, which would have been K.J.’s 21st birthday. Finally, Tootie and her supporters thought, somebody NEXT PAGE was being arrested for K.J.’s homicide. But, no, as it turned out these two men were arrested on other charges. They were in jail, and K.J.’s car was nowhere to be found. (Tootie later found out where it was taken.)
It was all so weird, like almost everything else in this case - how was K.J. shot to death in the chest with a rifle and very little blood evidence was found in the car. Where were the new speakers in the trunk of K.J.’s car? How did the bullet - a high powered rifle bullet, mind you - enter his chest and exit the side of his lower back, through a very small exit wound? How were small bottles of Gatorade on the floor board of the car, when K.J. never drank Gatorade? And, perhaps most important, why not test K.J.’s hands for gunshot residue - as it turns out, there is a simple explanation from law enforcement: they are not required to do that by SC law anymore.
“I’m not interested in hurting anybody in law enforcement. I just want them to do their job,” Tootie said.
K.J. Adams was found dead Dec. 2, 2023, on Torrington Road, between Clinton and Laurens. His stepdad called him on Nov. 30 and got no answer - he told Tootie, she called - straight to voicemail. She was told she had to wait 24 hours before a missing person’s report could be issued - on Dec. 1 someone not in Tootie’s family and circle posted to Facebook that he was missing and gave instructions on who to call if anyone had information. Tootie called - a person she had never met said she was just trying to be helpful. Tootie found out at 7 a.m. on Dec. 2 that the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office had K.J.’s car and officers had removed a bullet casing from beneath his body. All indications were they were treating it as a homicide.
Until, they weren’t.
Like I said, Tootie has a book of information that “explains” the change in the investigation’s path. As far as law enforcement is concerned, the case is closed.
There’s much, much more here, but we will stop for now. Simply, somebody knows something - call the law and tell them.
Contact Vic MacDonald at 864-833-1900 or news@clintonchronicle.net
