Officers responding to a 911 call found Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife Barbara and two of their grandchildren, ages 5 and 9, dead in the back of the Lesslies’ house outside the city of Rock Hill, York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said at a news conference Thursday.
James Lewis, an air conditioner technician working outside the house, was also killed.
A surviving technician was wounded and taken to a hospital. He was in critical condition as of Thursday morning, Tolson said.
Here’s everything we know so far about the tragedy.
The investigation
Detectives are still searching for a motive. There’s no evidence that Adams had been Lesslie’s patient, Tolson said
“There’s nothing about this right now that makes sense to any of us,” he said.
What is known, however, is that something that Adams left at the home led investigators to believe he was the gunman.
Adams was staying with his parents about a quarter of a mile away from the Lesslie home, Tolson said.
Officers removed the parents from the home, and tried to contact Adams. Eventually, officers found him dead, Tolson said, though they did not hear gunshots.
investigators believe Adams was the only assailant.
Adams used two types of weapons in the shooting, according to Tolson. Investigators don’t yet know how he obtained them.
The victims
Lesslie enjoyed “golfing, traveling and bagpiping. He is a regular columnist for YC magazine, an active member of his church, as well as an accomplished author,” according to the Riverview Hospice and Palliative Care bio. “His series of books offer hope and wisdom for his readers’ overall health and well being based on his years of experience in the field of medicine.”
Rock Hill lost a “pillar in the community,” Tolson said of Lesslie.
The couple lived in Rock Hill with “their golden retriever, Moses, several miniature horses, goats, donkeys, chickens and a lot of bees,” the Riverview bio said.
“We are truly in the midst of the unimaginable,” the Lesslies’ children said in a statement. “The losses we are suffering cannot be uttered at this time.”
The grandchildren’s names were Adah and Noah, according to the statement.
“Adah, Noah, Barbara, Robert, and the rest of the family would ask any memorials or gifts to be sent to Camp Joy North Carolina (918 South Pleasantburg Dr., Greenville, SC 29607) in honor of hope and the promise of eternit.”
Lewis, who was 38, was “killed doing the job he loved, making a living for the family he adored,” WSOC reported.
“He helped anybody, he was a kind guy, a great dad. It’s just so stupid,” Tucker told WSOC.
“I keep on expecting to wake up, ‘Oh, it was just a bad dream,’ but it’s not. It’s real,” Tom Lewis told WSOC. “I would like to find out why this guy did what he did.”
The suspect
Adams played in the NFL as a defensive back from 2010 to 2015 for teams including the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Oakland Raiders and New York Jets.
CNN’s Kay Jones, Dianne Gallagher, Jason Hanna, Steve Almasy and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.
