Ex49er’s rampage baffles family, friends
Head injuries cited in downfall before killings
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Even among those who knew Phillip Adams best, the former 49ers and Raiders cornerback was never an easy read.
Hardworking and reserved, he eschewed social life during his NFL years for evenings poring over video of himself and competitors. But in recent weeks, with the glory of pro football long behind him and living back at his family home in South Carolina, Adams had become more withdrawn, his warm and studious demeanor giving way to a blank stare.
This was the mysterious state of mind that Adams inhabited before Wednesday afternoon, the day police say he went to the nearby home of a beloved doctor and shot everyone there before fleeing back home and turning the gun on himself.
Now family, friends and authorities are left to piece together how the once loving and polite athlete could spend his final moments creating terror in his hometown, and whether the sport that had defined his young life could have played a role.
“He was a good kid in a bad situation, and a lot of people paid the price,” said Scott Casterline, Adams’ agent during his NFL career. “Phillip was obvi
ously out of his mind — the Phillip I know wouldn’t have even contemplated this.”
Neighbor and family friend Duane Belue called Adams a young man who loved his mother and took care of her after an accident left her disabled. “He loved his dad too, but he was a mama’s boy.”
“People need to know that this boy — he was a monster that day,” Belue said. “But before that, he was not a monster.”
Authorities believe Adams, 32, forced entry into Dr. Robert Lesslie’s home before fatally shooting Lesslie, 70, his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69, and the couple’s grandchildren, 9yearold Adah Lesslie and 5yearold Noah Lesslie.
Two airconditioning technicians also were found shot outside the home. James Lewis, 38, died at the scene, while his coworker, Robert Shook, 38, succumbed to his injuries three days later.
Adams is believed to have fled to his family home just down the street, and after a standoff with deputies, he was found inside with a selfinflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to police.
York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson would not confirm reports that Lesslie had treated Adams, saying, “There’s nothing about this right now that makes sense to any of us.”
“We have probably more questions than you do about this case right now,” Tolson told reporters Thursday, adding that the biggest question is why.
“We are working hard to provide some answers,” he said.
Adams’ family and friends have suggested he may have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that has been linked to athletes — particularly football players — who have been repeatedly struck in the head.
Casterline recalled that Adams had two concussions in a threeweek period when he was with the Oakland Raiders in 201213, and possibly one more later in his career.
“You could get concussed in football and not even know — I did when I played,” Casterline said. “We just didn’t know what it was back then, or the severity of it, until many years later.”
Officials with the York County Coroner’s Office said Adams’ brain will be examined for evidence of CTE.
“I think the football messed him up,” Adams’ father, Alonzo Adams, told WCNCTV in Charlotte, N.C. Lauren Adams, Phillip’s sister, told USA Today that her brother’s
mental health “degraded fast and terribly bad,” adding the family was concerned he showed signs of mental illness.
As a football star at Rock Hill High School, Adams stood shoulder to shoulder with the school’s other standouts — one of the town’s several native sons to later go pro.
Adams’ high school teammates included Tori Gurley, who went on to play in the Canadian Football League and various NFL practice squads; and Jonathan Meeks, who played for the Buffalo Bills. Jadeveon Clowney, an outside linebacker and former No. 1 overall draft pick who most recently played for the Tennessee Titans, graduated from neighboring South Pointe High School.
Raised on a rural street in a modest red brick ranch house, Adams was the baby of parents Alonzo and Phyllis’ three children. His older sister Lauren and older brother Ryan also were athletes, and both went on to play sports in college.
Neighbor Belue said Phillip Adams was especially close with his mother, a former elementary school teacher who became a paraplegic after a car accident more than a decade ago.
“As a young man and a football player, I mean, he loved his mother,” Belue said, adding that Adams often took care of her.
Adams grew up playing with Belue’s children in the sprawling farm property owned by Belue’s family, and Belue considered Adams one of his own. Belue wasn’t a sports fan himself, but kept tabs on the young star’s career.
Belue said Adams was raised in a closeknit and loving home, and whatever happened to him was no reflection on his family.
During his career, Adams’ entire identity was rooted in being a football player, Casterline said. Adams was laserfocused and trained to excess.
Casterline recalled how Kevin Smith, a former Dallas Cowboys cornerback, worked with Adams for much of his career, and how Adams
would watch football videos “into the wee hours of the night.”
“Kevin would tell him he was overthinking it,” Casterline said. “He would get mentally and physically exhausted.”
Adams, selected by the 49ers in the seventh round of the 2010 NFL draft, soon earned the dreaded reputation as a journeyman, hopping to six different teams in six seasons. He spent one season in San Francisco, before a gruesome ankle injury led the 49ers to release him in September 2011.
The New England Patriots signed and released Adams three more times in the 2011 season alone.
“When he would get released, it would crush him,” Casterline said.
Adams was a good soul, Casterline said, and the two ended up spending a considerable amount of time together. Several of Casterline’s clients lived in Dallas to train, and Adams often lived with Casterline during that time.
The young cornerback didn’t spend much time with anyone but Casterline and his other clients during those periods, according to the agent. He was “old school,” Casterline said, and rarely betrayed any emotions.
“He isolated himself a lot, even when he played,” Casterline said. “He liked being by himself.”
After his final season with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015, Adams was forced to make the transition out of pro football and the career that had
forged his identity.
“That’s all he knew and focused on all the time,” Casterline said. “I’m sure it was more difficult for him, and I kept my eye on that.”
Casterline tried to encourage Adams to take on a new career as soon as possible, believing it would give him a challenge and purpose. The agent’s family owns an energy business, and one idea was to make him an engineer in the field, tending to wind and solar turbines at generating sites.
“I thought that would be good for him because he was a loner; it would probably be right up his alley,” Casterline said.
While Adams was interested in the offer, he didn’t want to leave South Carolina because of his son.
Adams had recently moved back in with his parents to sort out his emotional issues, Casterline said. Whatever was ailing him, the family thought they could help him deal with it by having him home.
Alonzo Adams occasionally called Casterline out of increasing concern for his son, worried he wasn’t connecting with anyone.
The final call came on the day that ended Adams’ life. By that point, though, Casterline said, “Phil was gone. It was just a blank stare. I don’t think anyone around him knew how deep this issue was.”
The family and its neighbors hadn’t seen as much of one another in the pandemic year, but
Belue said he would notice Phillip outside occasionally working on his fourwheeler or playing with Belue’s young son. Lately, he said, Adams had seemed more downtrodden.
“We kind of noticed it didn’t seem like the Phillip we knew,” Belue said. “Just kind of quiet like something was bothering him.”
“As far as what happened, I mean who knows? It could be some mental thing, either from football or just what people get.”
“He was ...” Belue started before stopping him
self. “It’s hard to say, ‘He’s a good guy’ when there are kids murdered — innocent people. I’ve known him before whatever happened. There’s just not much to say other than there’s just not any answers.”
Megan Cassidy and Ron Kroichick are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: megan. cassidy@sfchronicle.com, rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy, @ronkroichick