An inmate from Meade County who’d spent nearly the last half-century in prison has died.
The South Dakota Department of Corrections says 76-year old Manford “Tim” Adkins passed away at the Penitentiary in Sioux Falls on July 1..
No cause of death has been given but under Corrections policy, an autopsy will be conducted.
Adkins, who’d spent 2 years as a part-time Box Elder police officer, was serving multiple life sentences for kidnapping and killing 2 young women, Billie Sue Allen and Valerie Janis, in March 1973.
The day after the pair was reported missing, Adkins went to the Meade County Sheriff’s Office and reported the theft of a pistol and rifle.
After Janis’s car was found, Adkins returned and said the pistol had been found and there was blood and hair on the barrel, adding he was “in trouble” because he had been the last person to see the girls.
The bodies were found the next day in a shed north of New Underwood and Adkins, accompanied by his attorney and the sheriff, was taken to see the bodies in a mortuary a few days later.
He initially agreed to take a polygraph test, changed his mind, then again agreed to go to Sioux Falls for testing if his lawyer was there. The agreement never reached the attorney and while being tested, he confessed to kidnapping and killing the girls.
Adkins was not under arrest at the time, so a deputy read him his Miranda rights and he repeated his confession – a key piece of evidence in his subsequent jury trial that saw him convicted of 2 counts each of kidnapping and murder.
I remember this guy when I attended Douglas High School at Ellsworth AFB.
We called him Box Elder Barney. He used to troll the hills looking for us high school kids parked in our cars with our girlfriends. He got his thrills shining his flashlight on as as we got dressed.
I also remember when he killed those two women and raped and murdered them. Good riddance! I hope he burns in hell.