Buddy recounts visit with accused killer

PALMER — Rusty Meyer said his friend Frank Adams was acting strangely the day they met up at the end of his road.

So strangely, Meyer testified Friday, that after Adams had left with money he’d borrowed, Meyer decided to call Adams’ cell phone.

“I said what’s going on man? That’s’ when he said she’s dead,” Meyer said. Adams said he and his girlfriend, Stacey Johnston were in a plane, “the plane got shot up and it crashed, is what he told me.”

Meyer was testifying Friday in the trial of Frank Adams, 47, who is accused of beating Johnston to death. Adams was stopped for driving erratically in July 2007 and officers at the time found Johnston’s body in the back of his hatchback. Adams has been on trial for the past three weeks, accused of beating her to death.

Meyer, 22, was among the last to see Adams before his arrest. He said they’d been friends since probably a week or two before Johnston died. Adams was hitchhiking. Meyer picked him up.

They ran into each other a few times afterwards. Eventually Meyer sold Adams the car Suzuki hatchback Johnston was found in.

On July 27, Meyer said, he was driving to Palmer to buy groceries with his girlfriend. He spotted Adams at a turnout on the Glenn Highway across from the Musk Ox Farm, a spot he calls the “blowhole” since the wind tends to whip through there.

On the way back to his home on Soapstone Road, Meyer said, he saw Adams was still there. So he decided to stop and see if Adams was having car trouble.

Meyer said Adams asked for some money. They agreed to meet up later at the end of Soapstone. Later that night, he got into Adams’ car and gave him a little more than $50. As he got out, he looked in the back and saw Stacey, under a blanket, with only some of her hair exposed.

“I noticed she was laying in the back seat,” Meyer said. “He said that she had a bad day … and she was sleeping. She was sick.”

Later, during the phone call when Adams came clean about Johnston being dead, Meyer said, he told his friend to go to the police.

“He pretty much didn’t want to and then he hung up,” Meyer said. “I hesitated calling the police right away. I thought I’d get in trouble because I gave him money.”

But, on the advice of his girlfriend, Meyer said, he called 911 and eventually ended up at the Palmer Police Department, giving a statement to officers there.

Adams’ attorney, Scott Sterling, asked Meyer questions about his state of mind the night he saw Johnston in the back of the car. Meyer was taking Vicodin for injuries received in a 4-wheeler accident. And, he said, he’d had a couple of beers.

“It’s safe to say you were loaded,” Sterling said.

“Yeah … Well … Yeah …,” Meyer responded.

Prosecutor Rachel Gernat cleared up some of what Meyer told Sterling.

“What part of the events do you think you have trouble remembering?” she asked Meyer.

“The order that it happens in and the conversations. I get them kind of mixed up,” Meyer said. But he remembers the substance of the conversations, if not when they talked or the sequence of what was said.

Both attorneys also asked Meyer about Adams’ demeanor. Adams seemed distraught and cried sporadically, Meyer said.

“Would you say that he appeared to be concerned for what was going on with Stacey?” Sterling asked.

“More concerned for himself,” Meyer replied.

“Why would you say that?” Sterling asked.

“He didn’t want to go to jail,” Meyer answered.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.