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The trial of Zachary Adams continues with scheduled Saturday testimony in Tennessee. Adams is one of six people arrested in connection with the disappearance and death of 20-year-old Holly Bobo and is the first to stand trial.
LawNewz Network coverage of the case will begin when court is in session at around 10 am.
Bobo disappeared at about 7:30 a.m. on April 13, 2011. Her brother testified that he saw her near the woods at her home with a man dressed in camouflage. Her brother said he assumed at the time that she was with her boyfriend. However, he alerted the authorities when he found blood outside the house.
After what has been called the most extensive search in Tennessee history, Bobo was not found.
Nearly two and a half years later, on September 7, 2014, hunters looking for ginseng found a skull later identified as Bobo’s some twenty miles from her home. Investigators also found a few rib bones.
Adams’ brother John Dylan Adams, Jason Autry, Shayne Austin, Jeff Pearcy, and Mark Pearcy were also arrested and accused of various levels of involvement.
John Dylan Adams claimed he saw Bobo with his brother Zachary and friend Autry after she was reported missing. He also reportedly claimed to know that the men “had raped Bobo and videotaped it.”
The state’s case will hinge heavily on the testimony of Jason Autry, who has been granted immunity to testify.
Autry on Thursday gave a detailed account of his experiences with Zachary Adams, who he claims asked him to help get rid of Bobo’s body. Autry described how he and Adams drove a truck with Bobo inside to an area underneath an interstate highway bridge. Autry testified that he is the one who suggested hiding Bobo’s body there because he had seen another body in the area in the early 2000s.
As Autry and Adams were carrying Bobo, Autry heard a sound and realized the girl was still alive, he testified. After Autry pointed this out, he said, Adams shot Bobo. Autry also told the court that Adams had admitted to raping Bobo along with John Dylan Adams and Shayne Austin.
Bobo’s skull contained a bullet entrance and exit wound, a medical examiner testified. A rusted gun which prosecutors claim was used in the killing was recovered in 2017.
On direct examination by prosecutors, Autry said Bobo’s brother knew it was defendant Zachary Adams at the Bobo house the morning she disappeared. Autry claimed Adams was there to teach Bobo’s brother how to cook methamphetamine. Autry claimed Adams told him that Holly Bobo started to freak out, so he took her. Prosecutors did not probe into the matter, and defense attorneys did not address it. If true, it could explain who neighbors heard a woman, presumably Bobo, screaming that morning for a couple of minutes. The scream, a neighbor testified, sounded serious, but the neighbor thought it sounded like the scream of someone mad at someone she knew, not a person in distress.
Investigators have been coy about the degree of suspicion they placed upon Bobo’s family.
Stay with LawNewz.com and the LawNewz Network for continuing coverage and expert analysis of the trial.
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