WHERE IS

PATRICA ADKINS?

 

Quick note: Her boyfriend, who is the main person of interest, has never been publicly identified by police, therefore we will not name him here. We will refer to him as POS, which is what he is. If you really want to know his name, it is easy to find through google.

 

Patti Adkins was a hard-working, single mother living in Marysville, Ohio. She worked at the local Honda plant having worked her way up from an entry-level position to a shift supervisor. As a shift supervisor, Patti was known for being the last to leave her shift ensuring that all the workstations on her line were clean and free from debris before clocking out. By all accounts, Patti had been a responsible employee over the past ten years at Honda. A career and a paycheck were not all that Patti found working at the automobile manufacturing plant; she also found love.

Over the past year (some have said two), Patti had begun dating POS. Although POS had sworn her to secrecy, Patti couldn't help but be enthusiastic and gush to her sisters, her best friend, and just one coworker about POS. There was one problem, he was married and he had children. Patti and POS indeed had an emotional affair that took place mainly within the walls of the Honda factory. While they had met up outside of work to pursue a physical relationship, it only happened a handful of times. Still, Patti was head-over-heels for him, and she anxiously hung on every word he had to say.

Working at Honda had its benefits, and among those, Honda had a policy that all employees get a week off during the week of July 4th. Patti was wrought with excitement when he asked her to accompany him on a trip to Canada that week. She could hardly wait, and while her sisters and friends strongly cautioned Patti about him, she wasn't hearing any of it. This trip was supposed to be the beginning of Patti and pos finally being together, and she couldn't wait for the rest of her life with him to begin. Patti arranged for her daughter to stay with her daughter's dad from June 30th to July 3rd, and then on Wednesday, her sister Marcia would get her niece from Patti's ex-husband's house and keep her from Wednesday the 4th until Sunday the 8th when Patti would pick her daughter up around noon. Patti had planned to board her animals at the local vet during her 1-week absence. Still, Patti's sister had a lot of reservations about the upcoming trip and frankly, she didn't like the idea that pos was married and had been borrowing large sums of money from Patti over the past year. She also thought that the plan leading up to the trip was very odd. POS had two vehicles: a car that he typically drove to and from the Honda plant, and a truck that he typically used at his second job where he was a part owner with his brother-in-law of a mechanics shop. But on June 29th, the day they are supposed to leave for the trip, pos would drive to the Honda factory with his truck and a brand-new tonneau cover that he had purchased for the bed of the truck. Patti was told to end her shift exactly at midnight and not to stay and help tidy up like she normally would. She was told to rush to his truck and crawl into the bed of the truck and hide under the tonneau cover where he would wait to drive a coworker home approximately 30 miles away. Upon dropping his coworker off, pos would release Patti from the bed of the truck where she would join him in the cab as they happily drove off to a blissful week in a remote location in Canada. She was to bring no luggage because, according to him, they would buy everything they needed once they arrived in Canada. They would be staying in a remote cabin, so cell service would be scarce if it even existed at all. Her sister was perplexed by this. How would she buy clothes if the place they were staying was so remote? The place that was described didn't sound like you could just skip into town and go on a shopping spree, and if you can, then why isn't there any cell service? And why would you want to spend all that time shopping for provisions if you could save time and bring your own items? It didn't make sense, but she was unable to get her sister to see the fault in these plans.

On Friday, June 29th, 2001, Patti leaves her car at home and rides with a friend to work. She begins her shift at 3:30 p.m. and ends her shift at 12:00:19 a.m., just 19 seconds after the stroke of midnight. Her coworkers notice as she makes a mad dash to exit the building. For the next week, nobody hears from Patti, but there is no alarm because nobody expects to. She already said she'd be gone a week, up in Canada, with little or no cell phone signal. There is no cause for alarm until Marcia begins to worry when Patti doesn't show up at noon on Sunday, July 8th. Feeling uneasy, Marcia calls Patti's home at 12:30 p.m., but there is no answer. Over the next few hours, Marcia calls every 30 minutes, then every 15 minutes, and then frantically every 5 minutes but nobody ever answers, so she calls pos' residence. his wife answers the phone, and Marcia makes up a story so as not to give away the real reason she's calling. Remember, his wife doesn't know he's having an affair, and as worried as Marcia is, she doesn't want to give away the secret. His wife tells Marcia that he isn't home, and this actually reassures her because she assumes that the drive home is just taking longer than expected, but minutes turn to hours, and by 5:00 p.m., Marcia becomes worried again and calls pos' residence a second time. This time he answers the phone and what he tells her sends Marcia into a panic. Marcia asks where Patti is, and he tells her that he doesn't know where Patti is and that there is no reason he should know where Patti is because, according to him, he isn't in a relationship with Patti. He tells Marcia she must be mistaken about them being in a relationship to which Marcia replies, "What did you do to her?" he hangs up the phone, and Marcia is left very worried, and at 7:00 p.m., Marcia calls the police and reports Patti missing. That night, Marcia cannot sleep. She's sick with worry and can't think of anything else to do but call the person who she knows has the answers. At 3:00 a.m. on July 9th, Marcia calls the pos' residence again. This time, Marcia speaks to his wife. At some point during this conversation, he takes the phone from his wife and again claims to not know anything about Patti and insists he was not having an affair, but instead of hanging up like anyone else would do in this situation,he keeps Marcia on the phone for 45 minutes asking her questions about things Marcia knows about him, and Marcia is able to tell him just about anything about his life. Marcia knows he's married, she knows he has kids, she knows he's having an affair with her sister, she knows he has a second job where he co-owns the mechanics shop with his brother-in-law, she knows he borrowed money from Patti to buy out his brother-in-law's ownership of the business, she knows he is hiding the money that Patti gave him so his wife won't find it and take it in the divorce. He sticks to his guns and he insists that he is not having an affair with Patti or anyone else, that he doesn't know what she's talking about, and that he doesn't know what happened to Patti.

The police search Patti's home and find nothing out of the ordinary; nothing seems to be missing, and there is no sign of a struggle. The next day, the police interview is pos and he denies any involvement and insists there was no affair. He tells them he gave a friend a ride home, they stopped at a Burger King, he dropped his friend off in kenton, Ohio, and was home by 2:30 a.m. The police interview the friend that he drove home the night of Patti's disappearance. The friend says he gave him a ride home and they stopped at a Burger King for something to eat, and then he dropped him off at home in kenton, Ohio, about 30 miles away. pos wife also confirms that he got home that night around 2:30 a.m., but she denies that he was having an affair simply because he wouldn't have the time. He had two jobs. He's either at work or at home, and he comes home every day from work when expected like clockwork. She also denies that he was in Canada and that he never made plans to go to Canada; in fact, it was the opposite. his plans were at home. He had planned multiple projects around the house for that week, including pouring a slab of concrete. While it may look good on the surface for him that his timeline, his wife's timeline, and his friend's timeline all seem to match, there is one problem to consider: it shouldn't take him two-and-a-half hours to drive 30 miles away and back. *The POS comes up with the explanation that they got stuck at Burger King for 45 minutes waiting for their food. The police contact the manager at the Burger King to ask about this, and the manager at the Burger King tells the police that there is no way that Burger King would ever be so busy as to take 45 minutes to get their food and especially not at 12:30 a.m. on a Friday night/ Saturday morning.

On July 13, 2001, police executed a search warrant at his residence. During the search, they find a Hard Rock Hotel t-shirt and a cell phone, both items purchased by Patti and given to him. They also found a letter from Patti to him describing their relationship and how excited Patti was to be with him. he also admitted that Patti gave him a birthday card and that he tore it up because he thought his wife would think it was suspicious if she found it. Further into their investigation, they found that Patti had reportedly given him almost $90,000. She liquidated her 401K, sold stock, took out a second mortgage on her home, and took money out of her personal accounts. There is no record of him receiving any money, but Patti's family says that a search of her home turned up empty cash bands corroborating her statements that she gave him cash, which there is no record of. Also interesting, according to Marcia, pos was to start paying back the money Patti lent him in July 2001; the month she went missing. After the July 13th search, the police searched his home and business again. They drained nearby ponds and searched them. They dug up the yard, they dug up the concrete slab, and they had cadaver dogs searching the property. One of the dogs hit on the concrete slab that was poured the week that Patti went missing. The search turned up no sign of Patti. They searched his truck which no longer had a tonneau cover on it, but they found the tonneau cover at his business and tested it. pos admits that he ordered the tonneau cover and picked it up on the 29th, the day Patti went missing, and removed it a week later on *July 8th. he had no excuse as to why he removed the brand-new, expensive cover after only using it for a week. Upon interviewing a service manager at his mechanic shop, the service manager admitted that he was puzzled as to why he would've purchased a tonneau cover in the first place because his truck is primarily a work truck where they use it to load and unload parts and heavy equipment, and a tonneau cover would not be conducive to doing any of those things; in fact, it would be a hassle and it would get in the way. Police located and confiscated the tonneau cover and they found cat hairs and blood. The blood, after many years, was tested and came back as belonging to pos, but the hairs belonged to a cat and were tested and came back as being consistent with Patti's cat. he was given a polygraph test, which he failed. Shortly after, he quit his job at the Honda factory.

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS WHAT HAPPENED? It is to me, and this is why I can't believe this hasn't been solved yet.

Pos had been having a (mostly) emotional affair with Patti. I believe there were a handful of times they met outside of work in the year (or two) that they were together, but the bulk of their relationship was emotional and it took place during work hours. He used Patti to liquidate all of her assets and bring him cash that he told her he would pay back. He convinced her that it had to be cash so his wife couldn't take it in the divorce. Over the year, Patti lent him money, gave him a birthday card, and brought him gifts. I believe for him, it was purely a transactional relationship; meanwhile, Patti had it in her head that he was going to leave his wife to be with her. Knowing that the week of July 4th they would both have a week off, he hatched a plan. I believe that the time was coming when he was going to start to have to pay back the $90,000, and maybe Patti got a little antsy and threatened to tell his wife if he didn't pay up. Knowing they both have a week off for July 4th, and knowing there would be no record of her having to request time off, he decided that would be the week. So he makes up a lie and tells her he owns or has rented a cabin in some remote part of Canada. He tells her that her phone won't work where they are going so that her family won't be alarmed when they don't hear from her. He tells her taking two cars won't make sense, so she leaves hers at home and gets a ride to work. He tells her not to pack a bag and that they will buy provisions when they get there. He tells her she will have to hide in the bed of his truck until he drops his friend off after work so nobody will see them together. She instructs her crew that she is leaving at midnight on the dot, and 19 seconds after midnight, Patti clocks out and runs outside to the *POS’s truck. She climbs into the bed of the truck hidden by the tonneau cover. His friend enters the cab of the truck some minutes later not knowing she is hiding back there, and they drive away. They stop at Burger King, and he drops his friend off. He drives to a remote location and *permanently gets rid of Patti. He either hides her or buries her and drives home, which is why it takes him two-and-a-half hours to drive 60 miles. He comes home at 2:30 a.m. and resumes the rest of the week as planned doing projects around the house. Nothing is out of the ordinary, and he has two alibis: his friend who never saw Patti and can confirm there was nobody else in the truck on the drive to drop him off at home, and his wife who knows he was at home as planned, not in Canada or unaccounted for. It's almost the perfect plan IF she had stuck to her word and never told anyone about the affair. Unfortunately for him, not only did she tell her sisters, her friend, and a coworker, she gave them all the nitty gritty details and she even gave her sister Marcia his home phone number.

If he were telling the truth and there was truly no affair, then why:

Would he accept money from a woman he barely knows? There is no proof he received it, but there's also no trail saying where it went. If not, then why did she lie to her sisters for over a year about giving this man money, and then they were able to corroborate that she did liquidate all of her assets? It leans toward true that she gave him a large amount of cash over the year.

Why did he tell her all these personal details if he barely knew her? She was right about a lot of it: he was married, had kids, had a mechanic shop with his brother-in-law, etc.

Why did he A) drive his truck that day when he usually didn't and B) Install a tonneau cover and use it only for six days? And C) why did she get a ride to work that day if she wasn't planning on leaving? Her car was working, and she also didn't arrange a ride home, so it stands to reason that she thought she was leaving town. Why else would she rush out right at midnight instead of staying like she always did?

Was his friend involved? Why did they lie about being at Burger King for 45 minutes?

Why did he keep a love letter if there was no affair? If she was delusional and had imagined it, wouldn't you throw it away or even report it to HR? Why did he admit to disposing of a birthday card? Why did he keep the Hard Rock shirt she gave him when she came back from Miami? Why did she give him a phone and why did he accept it if they had no relationship outside of coworkers? If she is just "generous," why didn't any other coworkers receive gifts or cards from her?

If he only had the tonneau cover on his truck for one week, what are the chances that her cat's hair would end up there aside from placing her in the bed of that truck during that week? Why buy an expensive cover only to use it for a week? A tarp would've been cheaper and it's disposable.

Why did the cadaver dogs hit on the concrete block that was installed the weekend she went missing? Don't get me wrong. I don't think he buried her and moved her like probably happened in the Kristin Smart case. I think it's something else, like, maybe he used a shovel to bury her, and maybe the shovel touched her dead body in the process and probably even had some soil on it from the burial site. The next day, he installs a concrete pad using the same shovel, and the soil from the burial site falls off while he's using it to dig or level where the concrete pad will go. I think it's something like this that caused the cadaver dogs to hit on the concrete pad. Soil transfer or the shovel actually touched her dead body.

I think this is a case that can be solved, and I wonder why it's not. Many of the things that Patti claimed are corroborated By the evidence.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PATTI ADKINS OR THE AFFAIR BETWEEN PATTI AND THAT POS, PLEASE CALL:

Lieutenant Jeff Stiers at: (937) 645-4126 or email at: jstiers@unioncountyohio.gov OR REMAIN ANONYMOUS by calling the crime tip hotline at: (937) 642-7653"

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