Why DID Army hero son of millionaire Scot end up dead in boot of a car?
EXCLUSIVE: Father speaks to Mail about the secret tragedy behind the murder of a loving son and decorated war veteran
IT was a tow truck driver called to move the abandoned Lexus from a California freeway underpass who first noticed something suspicious about the car. As soon as police officers forced open the trunk, the evidence they had stumbled upon a macabre murder mystery was all too clear.
Inside was crammed the unmistakable form of a human being, wrapped tightly in a blue tarpaulin and bound with duct tape.
Having quickly established that the car was stolen and had probably been dumped at the spot near Gypsum Canyon in the Anaheim Hills some time earlier, it took three long days to put a name to the body in the makeshift shroud.
He was eventually identified as 34-year-old Adrian Bonar, a known drug addict with a string of previous convictions for drugs and weapons possession, who was wanted by the authorities on an outstanding arrest warrant.
The cause of death was a gunshot wound and, although police refused to elaborate on how or where the fatal shot was delivered, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the victim had been on the wrong end of a gangland-style hit. A tragedy, of course, but hardly a surprising turn of events, one might say.
Yet the deeper one delves into this grimly fascinating case, the more it becomes clear that Adrian Bonar was scarcely typical of those whose lives are cut short in the crossfire of America’s spiralling drugs wars.
Born in July 1985, the son of a prominent – and very wealthy – Scots-born businessman, he went on to become a decorated US Army veteran who served three tours of duty with distinction before being honourably discharged.
He could have been the epitome of the American Dream but for the heavy toll of military service which his family blame for sparking his fatal descent from privilege and duty into a nightmare of crime and drugs.
Speaking exclusively to the Scottish Daily Mail, his devastated father, Brian Bonar, said: ‘He was a wonderful boy, highly decorated. He had a huge heart, the first man to give you the shirt off his back, the first guy there to smile and make you laugh.
‘He had a fantastic smile, he was a big guy. Although he was born in America, Adrian was very proud of his Scottish heritage. He had been to Scotland a few times with me to visit relatives and attended his sister’s wedding there.’
WHEN he was 18, Adrian had the Lion Rampant tattooed on his right shoulder blade along with the Bonar family motto – Denique coelum, or Heaven at Last. His father described his son as ‘the brightest shining light’ before he was sent to Iraq. But on his return, he ‘would go into these deep mood swings’ and suffered nightmares.
‘He never really talked about what happened, most soldiers don’t,’ said Mr Bonar. ‘When I found his commendation medal on his kit bag, I said, “Son, why didn’t you tell me about this?” He said, “Dad, that medal’s not for me, it’s for the guys I couldn’t save”.’
He added: ‘I don’t want to belittle my son, but at times he would get crazy, he would make judgments that weren’t smart, the same judgments that probably led to his death.’
By all accounts, Adrian’s impulsive side was already evident as a youngster. One of nine children from different mothers, Adrian grew up in the prosperous provincial town of Escondido, near San Diego, where his father and mother, Linda, settled after moving from Greenock, Renfrewshire.
Brian worked for IBM before striking out on his own, forming a string of successful companies in financial services and hospitality.
But the marriage came under strain and when they divorced, Linda returned to her native Stewarton, in Ayrshire. Mr Bonar, now 72 and remarried, recalls teenaged Adrian as a ‘goofy, disorganised but very loving boy’ who was constantly getting into scrapes.
He wrote off his first truck, claiming that a dump truck forced him into a row of trees in a municipal park in Escondido. Mr Bonar learned years later that Adrian had actually been racing one of his friends in another vehicle.
Another time, Adrian took the family car without permission for a joyride. Such youthful indiscretions persuaded his father to send his wayward son to military school, the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California. It seemed the making of him and he graduated top of his class.
In 2006, he joined the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and served three six-month tours in Iraq’s deadly Sunni Triangle, largely based in the ancient walled town of Hit. Physically tough, he made a name for himself as the platoon’s M240 machine gunner, carrying the infantry’s heaviest weapon and a full 800 rounds of linked 7.62 ammunition on every mission.
A famous newspaper photograph widely circulated at the time showed Private First Class Bonar on manoeuvres in full combat gear, gun at the ready.
‘He handled it like a man. He was impressive,’ wrote his platoon sergeant, Wendell T Gee, in a letter to his family. ‘I used to make us walk all over the town of Hit and he was the machine gunner that ensured we could react to contact by laying down suppressive fire on the enemy if needed.
‘He was always motivated and rarely complained about carrying the heaviest load in the squad.’
Sgt Gee said Gunner Bonar proved a charismatic motivator, pushing his buddies to complete a mission when their spirits were low. A talented singer, he would organise impromptu singalongs in barracks to boost morale.
But, as a further redeployment in Afghanistan loomed, his demons caught up with him. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and declared medically unfit for service.
The Bonar family are convinced Adrian’s later troubles stemmed from the moment of his honourable discharge.
‘It’s not only the PTSD; there was a loss of hearing from firing a big gun and also he had badly damaged his back in combat,’ said
Mr Bonar. ‘He was a Saw Gunner, and because these things are 50-calibre bullets fired out at a great rate, every bullet was a mini concussion to him and that was why he suffered from this PTSD.’
ALL eligible military veterans are entitled to comprehensive healthcare provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but Mr Bonar believes the treatments are crude and cause more problems than they cure.
‘Their answer was to start with ibuprofen – and that wasn’t strong enough, so they pumped Adrian up with other drugs and it just goes on and on.’
Adrian’s younger brother,
Cannon Bonar, 26, added: ‘I don’t think he wanted to leave the Army. When he got out he really struggled, not just with the PTSD but no longer being in such a structured environment. And then he struggled with the PTSD too.’
Cannon, who is himself a recovering addict, now helps run a luxury rehab clinic.
He complained that the VA were too quick to prescribe very powerful medication: ‘I know for sure they’d given him Xanax, and some other psychotropic medication and it really kind of changed him. Whether that’s from the prescriptions or the PTSD I’m not sure, but my belief is a drug is a drug and whether it’s coming from a pharmacy or from the streets, it’s still affecting your body in a certain way and that triggered things to snowball into what they did.’
He claimed his brother fought his addiction and had many periods of sobriety including a point when the pair shared an apartment in Los Angeles around 2010.
They would drive round in Adrian’s
pride and joy, a souped-up grey Chevy Camero SS, ‘blasting sappy love songs and not giving a care to who saw us’.
Adrian even opened his own rehab centre, Wilcrick Manor, but the venture quickly failed. His father explained: ‘It just got too much for him, we actually had to close it down because he himself relapsed while running it.
‘Adrian surrounded himself with other vets with drug problems and they just never had the experience to run it. By the time all these guys sat around the table and talked about their nightmares, all it did was bring back his issues.’
He tried his hand at other jobs, briefly running his own gym and working as a sales rep at the bandy Canyon holiday and wedding retreat near San Diego owned by one of his father’s companies.
Relationships proved to be equally fragmented. He was engaged to Jackie Franklin, a waitress at an upmarket restaurant in Escondido also owned by Mr Bonar, and the pair had a daughter, Piper Rose, now five. But his PTSD and other problems caused the engagement to founder.
Another romance led to a son, Ronan James, now two-and-a-half, but at the time of his death, Adrian was single again.
In July 2012, Adrian was found guilty by the San Diego County courts of carrying a loaded firearm in public and handed three years’ probation, a $875 fine and banned from owning weapons or firearms.
In 2016, he admitted a grand theft misdemeanour charge of robbery, stealing personal property ‘by means of force and fear’.
He was sentenced on October 30, 2016 to three years’ probation, 25 days in jail, five days’ public service work, and a $1,101 fine.
The most serious charge came the following year, when he was convicted for possession of methamphetamine while armed. The highly addictive stimulant, usually sold by dealers as ‘crystal meth’, was made famous by the US TV series Breaking Bad.
He was sentenced on August 22, 2017, to 365 days in jail, three years’ probation, banned from carrying firearms, and fined $820.
In hindsight, the signs of a growing involvement in the drugs underworld seemed quite clear.
By last summer, Adrian had been released from prison, but remained on probation until summer 2020. At first, he appeared to be cooperating with the criminal justice system, although one intriguing detail hinted that this former vet was still suffering some emotional turmoil.
Since his release, Adrian had been working for the Church of Scientology at a community outreach programme.
It transpired that the drug rehabilitation clinic where Cannon works as communications director is run by a firm called Narconon. Its parent company is the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), which is entirely owned and controlled by the Church of Scientology.
Cannon insisted Adrian was not a member, but when asked if he himself was an adherent, the younger Bonar replied: ‘I prefer not to disclose that.’
Adrian was, he confirmed, due to take up a bed at the Narconon clinic at the time of his murder, but had been stalling for some reason.
Adrian’s father last saw him about six weeks before his death when his son promised he was returning to rehab. ‘He’d lost the key to his mailbox and he dropped by the office to pick the key up.
‘That was when I said to him, “Son, you’ve got to go in and try and beat this demon”, and he said, “Dad, I’ve got a few things I’ve got to take care of and then I’ll go”. And that was the last I saw of him.’
UNKNOWN to Mr Bonar, his son had been living between motels in north San Diego County and Los Angeles County for months and had been missing meetings with his probation officer. At the time of his death, a warrant had just been issued for his arrest for violating the conditions of his bail. By then, of course, it was too late.
At a memorial service for Adrian Bonar, the Stars and Stripes were draped over his coffin in solemn recognition of a fallen soldier of the US Army. Nearby stood a photograph of him proudly wearing the kilt, glass in hand.
There are still many questions to answer in this baffling case. Who had Adrian Bonar so antagonised that it had led to his murder? Why was his body dumped 75 miles from his home address?
But one question troubles Brian Bonar more than any other – could more have been done to save his son from such a fate?
Those who attended were made aware of the Bonar family’s determination to help other veterans suffering with PTSD and drugs problems by the setting up of a foundation in Adrian’s name.
Mr Bonar said: ‘I’m not banging on the US Army, but they need to take care of vets. They don’t do it. So that’s what the Foundation is about – our ultimate goal is to set up a rehab that does nothing but takes in VA Vets with PTSD and drug abuse.
‘We’re going to try and help these guys that need help in a different way and we can’t save them all but maybe we can save some.’