Published: 19 Oct 2020

Sam and I were in church on the second Sunday after the murders at the Adkins farm when we were greeted before the service by Glenn and Eddie. The boys had already gone into the church to grab our pew and Sam and I were trying to figure out if we wanted to take our four younger boys out to breakfast after the service or to make breakfast at home after. The five older guys were going to the next service so we didn’t have to worry about them this morning, we knew they were going to eat out after the service they attended was over. Glenn asked me if I was involved with the Adkins case and when I told him I was, he told me he’d like to talk to me after the service we were about to attend.

After the service ended Glenn told me that he had heard some rumors about Kent Clark, the Realtor handling the Adkins farm. Glenn told me that Mr. Clark was originally from Amherst and had dated the younger Adkins daughter in high school and that during his handling of the farm for her parents, they had rekindled their romance, initially starting to meet in the big barn while the parents were out or otherwise occupied on the property. That wasn’t the only thing though, there had been rumors in school that the older brother, Bud, before he became so fat, had also “dated” Kent Clark and that they had carried on for a few years after graduation. That certainly fitted in with what I had deduced from my investigation, and it made everything fit. I thanked Glenn for coming forward and we parted in the parking lot so Sam and I could take our boys out to breakfast.

Monday at work I went over all the bits and pieces of the case as revealed by the evidence, especially the data from the dead son in law’s computer, the file kept by the Realtor, the ledgers from Mr. Adkins’ home office, and all the note pads, gathered from the phones in each house of the deceased, and the cell phone records of all involved. Combined with what Glenn had told me yesterday it all fit, even better than it had on Friday when I had last looked at everything, but now it all fit better, and made more sense.

I called into the chief’s office and asked him to join me in mine, as I had my case ready to lay out before him. I explained my theories as I went through it all, showing him the evidence for each conclusion. First was the odious Mr. Bud Adkins, who although on the TV and radio doing his obnoxious commercials, was failing as a businessman. His company was just a month or two from bankruptcy. His brother in law, Gerald Novack, the bank accountant and investment councilor, was investing with his client’s money, but not for them, he was investing badly for himself and to try and help his brother in law out of his financial problems, not willingly, mind you, he was being coerced into helping Bud because Bud had seen Gerald at a gay underground club in Springfield with his old high school fling, Kent Clark, together Gerald and Bud devised a plan where Kent would re-aquatint himself with Gerald’s wife and seduce her into a relationship so she could be coerced into convincing her parents into accepting the next offer on the farm whereby Bud and Gerald would then get their grubby hands on some or all of the parent’s new found gains and use that to get themselves out of the financial distress they both had found themselves in.

The way I saw it Bud had driven Gerald and his wife to her parent’s farm, ostensibly to try and get her parents to accept the developer’s offer. He must have become enraged when Mr. and Mrs. Adkins refused to accept the offer, he then shot them and I would have to assume his sister became hysterical and began to argue with him outside where she had run to the barn. They argued, her husband argued with the both of them and Bud shot them both and set the fire to try and cover up any evidence that might have been left. What he hadn’t counted on was the smoke and fire detectors sending a direct alarm to the fire station and their swift and efficient response, preserving a lot of evidence and the dead bodies for examination.

The chief sat back and just nodded his head, finally saying it all made sense to him and what clinched it was the telephone note pads in the Novack home, detailing when Bud would pick up the Novacks and the ones in the Adkins home that showed they were expecting Bud, and Gerald and his wife that morning of the fire. The Chief then called the District Attorney and asked him to come over from the courthouse as soon as was possible. When he arrived I went over the case again for him and he agreed, thanking me for preserving the note pads, and he issued an arrest warrant for Bud Adkins.

I arrived at Mr. Adkins’ office with the Chief and the District Attorney, we three accompanied by two burly officers in uniform from the Springfield police department, to arrest Mr. Bud Adkins for the murders of his parents and his sister and her husband. Someone, possibly from the odious man’s own office, had notified the local TV station so there was plenty of coverage on the evening new of his arrest, which our younger boys got a big kick out of when they saw it on our television after our dinner that evening. I told Sam that if he and his crew hadn’t been so diligent in extinguishing the barn and house fires there wouldn’t have been much evidence for me to work with, and in bed that night I showed him just how thankful I was, twice.

That August was a hot and muggy one. We all spent as much time in the pool or in the air conditioned house and cottage as possible. Stu and Rico told us about the latest storm to miss hitting them directly and all was well down there and they eagerly awaited our Fall trip which we had scheduled around the Columbus Day holiday, as the kids had a week off from school because of teacher’s workshops the four school days after the Monday holiday, that would give us a week in Key West on this trip because we’d use some of the first and second weekend for travel.

On our first morning there my Chief called and told me the news from up home; during the night Bud Adkins had committed suicide in the county jail. The elder Adkins’ will had left everything to their children, split evenly and there was a provision in it that if any of the children were not alive at the time of their deaths, their estate would pass to the remaining children/child. The courts had already ruled that only the remaining sister stood to inherit and she had decided that she didn’t feel comfortable profiting from the murders and in a conversation with Becca (our family lawyer, who was a good friend of hers) she had learned of our family situation and we could expect a call from Becca very soon, as they had just spoken and it was decided that he should lay the groundwork for her call.

Becca called about 10 minutes after the Chief had hung up and both Sam and I listened to her as she explained what was happening. The surviving daughter wanted to gift the farm to Sam and I, with the understanding that we would continue to take in children who had been placed in jeopardy, had been abused or mistreated, had been rendered homeless by the deaths of their parent(s), or who were not placeable by DCFS. The property, consisting of two hundred acres and the remains of the house and barn and assorted other out buildings, plus a trust, made up from the insurance policy pay out on both her parents and her sister, which was valued at well over 4 million was included to create the residence needed to do this and whatever other facilities we needed to accomplish this. There was no big rush, Becca told us, we had plenty of time to think about this, to mull it over and to decide if we wanted to make this a large home or make it more of a structured environment for the children involved, like a residential school.

Becca told us that should we decide to do this, she would probably be able, through private donations and several grants to double the trust fund for the “incidentals” and for the operation of the home, no matter which way we chose to go. She told us that we needn’t start off big by any means, but we could start off small and grow as our needs dictated. She told us that there was no pressure being put on us by anyone, we could always turn the property over to someone who in our estimation would carry out the wishes of our benefactor. We ended the call and told her we’d be in touch either before we came back home, or just after.

And so it began, Sam and I huddled together, either in the living room, or out by the pool. We delegated a lot of the side trips to the three oldest of our family, Cal, Brian and Sean, with them getting help from our two oldest, Alo and Aidan. It became apparent something was up and we soon had a bunch of worried youngsters who were missing us and didn’t understand what was going on with Sam and I. Sam told me that we had to let them know what was going on, as this was going to affect them as well as us, probably whether we did this “group home in the country” or not.

We were certainly going to have to tell them soon, because we would need each and every ones backing before we could even think of acting on the proposal put forward to us. Wednesday at dinner we were faced with a family of glum faced boys and young men, all sneaking looks at Sam and I trying to gauge our mood, almost afraid to talk to us, afraid of setting us off somehow. Sam looked at me and nodded down the big outdoor dining table at our almost silent and nervous family and he told me it was time to let them all in on our dilemma and to get their feedback. I stood from the table and took Sam’s hand and bid him to come stand with me and I addressed the table.

“Sam and I have something we need to ask you all and somethings to explain; a few days ago we were called by Becca and she told us of an offer that was made to us. The offer was to virtually pay for us to be fathers for not only you boys, who have become our lives, our family, our loves, but to take in even more boys who need a family just like ours. It might be just one or two at a time, but eventually it could be a dozen or two. Not totally in our family, but to live under our care. Either in a big group home or to start our own boarding school, where the students went to classes on the property and lived in dorms there also.”

Our family was intact, but we all had caring instincts and what better way to fulfill those than to help someone who wouldn’t get that chance unless we did it (I think I was talking myself into it at this point). I looked around the table and Jay piped up and said, “I don’t think our house is big enough dad, are we going to get a new house?” Sam spoke up and said that that was the big decision we all had to make, could we build a bigger house and maybe a school too? Or a big house for us and another “dormitory” style house for the “new” boys we would be helping. Boy did that get them talking, it was a relief to them that there was nothing wrong, it was just how to do the right thing that had kept us from them for the fun stuff.

Each one had ideas and we asked them to think them all through and we’d have a more structured meeting the next night with all of them. The next night, after a lively meal and a fun day at Smather’s Beach we had our meeting and we took notes, lots of notes and we all came to the same conclusion after some discussions and questions flowing back and forth. We came up with the same decision, we needed more information and input. How big should our own home be? How many boys housed in our own home would be too many? How would the boys feel about moving into a group home after living as part of our family until the group home could be built? Who would be the house parents for the group home? What grades would be offered if we had our own school?

OK, so we didn’t come up with anything definite, but it got the boys all involved and they really were getting into it with us. Questions were asked over the next couple of days and sometimes we had answers and sometimes the questions got put in the notebooks for when we had more knowledgeable input from better informed people than us.

By the time we were ready to leave for home Sam and I had some basic ideas that we discussed with everyone on our flight back home. One of our thoughts was that we wanted a “home atmosphere” for whatever we developed, what would be the advantage of creating another institution that just housed children? So we thought about not just one home, but maybe a couple of them, scattered on the property like a neighborhood. There would be house parents at each house and no more than five or 6 children in the house. That way we wouldn’t be an institution, we’d be a neighborhood, able to grow with our needs. We would start off small, with our house and maybe two or three others being built and that way we would not be using all our capital all at once, some would always be left for re-investment to enable the facility to function, paying the bills, providing for the children in our care, and being there to support our growth over the years if it was needed.

When we were once again home and settled into home life again we began to go through the notes we had taken and began to have regular meetings with Becca and others she had found to help us, an accountant, a retired teacher, and Helen Evans, the local director of DCFS, along with Carla and Jason and Glenn and Eddie. Cal and Brian and Sean were with us during all these meetings and it wasn’t long before we realized that we really needed someone to organize all this and it was Cal that stepped up to the plate and utilizing his training in college he treated us like one of his college projects and soon had us organized and focused.

In the end, we decided on a plan. Plans would be drawn up for a new house for us to be built just past where the current ruin of a house now sat, and the wide drive would be extended quite a way past us and another slightly smaller house would be built about two football field’s distance away down the new road. A large barn would replace the old one and a corral fenced in, one on each side of the barn. The furthest fields, accessible from another road, would be leased out to generate income for the farm. The signage on our road would identify our project as “Adkins Farm” to honor our benefactors. As we grew more homes could be added and eventually a school, we’d just have to see if the need would arise.

It would be many months until the building would be at a point we could move in, and toward that goal we prepared our own house for sale, hoping for the best price it could bring. Glenn was invaluable as he counseled us on what had to be done to make it showable to it’s best advantage and two months before the new house was totally finished we placed it on the market with Glenn. As we signed the listing papers he and Eddie told us that they would also be listing their house, as they wanted to apply to be our first house parents and move into the other new house on Adkins farm that was also nearing completion. Chris and Damon, their adopted sons, now 15, would be of course moving in with them and that way they would still be close to Brian who would be living with Cal and Sean in a bungalow built behind our new house, by the new pool.

Our contractor asked us for a final walk through on our own new house just a day short of their estimated finish time, and everything was perfect and the bungalow was perfect too. We set up our move for the last day of April and the movers had planned for moving the older guys out of the cottage and into the new bungalow on the same day. The boys were excited to be setting up their new rooms and Richie and the twins were actually having fun setting up and helping each other out a lot, as Sam and I were putting our room into order as Aidan and Alo attended to theirs. It was a pizza kind of night and by the time the delivery driver had dropped them off we had already settled our rooms and had started on the kitchen, so by the time the three from out back came over to eat we were all settled in and getting the feel of the places we would call home for many, many years to come.

We got our first call from Helen the very next day. It concerned a 14 year old who was found eating out of a dumpster behind a restaurant in downtown Springfield. The boy didn’t even know what month it was and was very uncertain about what state he was in when a kind police woman had found him behind the restaurant. After checking all the nation wide bulletins for missing and exploited children and he wasn’t found there and with what information he could give it was determined he had been abducted several years ago and used by a human trafficking ring and as he had grown older he was basically cast aside. He was miraculously medically sound, but his education had been neglected. Right now what he needed was a home and a lot of attention and tutoring.

So that’s what Bob got. Sam took a leave of absence from work, only being called in for emergencies and with all of the help the boys and our young men and our friends could give he brought Bob up to date in his education in six months. When he realized that what he had been doing with all those men for all those years was wrong I thought he was going to have a complete meltdown, so we got him a therapist and after a few months he was the bright and cheerful teen once again. He began to see that yes, men could love one another, but it just wasn’t acceptable for an adult to have sexual relations with much younger boys.

Our house sold for almost one and three quarters of a million, a record for our old neighborhood and the same week Glenn and Eddie’s house sold and they moved into the new house down our new drive. A week later Jason and Carla called and asked if they could be considered for the next house parent position, we were already starting work on another new home and of course we were thrilled. I think Jason got as much out of tutoring Bob as Sam did, plus B&B missed the twins something terrible when they weren’t all in school. About a month after that John’s parents called and asked if they could be the next set of house parents.

It seemed that as soon as a new house was finished, Helen had candidates for us for the empty bedrooms available. The barn had been rebuilt and as soon as the corrals had been finished we had horses on the property. Helen’s partner Terry had brokered the sale of 6 mares to us and she had even supplied us with a college student “farm hand” who took care of the horses and he also taught the boys, all of them, how to ride and care for the horses, so if he had a late class or was on vacation from the college, there were plenty of willing hands from all the houses to pitch in. Sam and I grew to love riding out on the undeveloped portions of the property almost as much as we did working out together.

We were sill able to visit Key West several times a year and we even had a small cottage tucked in the corner of our lot just for Stu and Rico’s use, and then had two more large bedrooms added on to the main house. We were able to take six extra boys along each trip and we did that on a rotating basis so all the 20 new boys had a chance to travel with us at least two times a year. Bob became our son after the state granted an exception in his case, you see, there really is a limit on how many children you can adopt in our state, but they made an exception in his case, really as a favor to him, as he helped the authorities break up the human trafficking ring, which netted over three hundred arrests in a 4 state area, and the rescue of 200 children. Bob finally had a family that loved him and cared about him.

The End of Uniformed Response part 3

Our authors receive no payment other than your emails to them.. Email Art at: ArtWest at CastleRoland dot Net

3,108 views