Man slammed girl’s head, then left her in bed to die in 1992, feds say. He’s sentenced
A South Dakota man slammed a child’s head against a concrete floor, killing her 30 years ago, federal officials say.
Now he’s been sentenced to prison.
Jay Adams, 58, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in November, according to a June 27 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota.
McClatchy News reached out to Adams’ attorney for comment on July 1 but did not immediately hear back.
On Sept. 24, 1992, Adams slammed the girl’s head against the floor “in the heat of passion” in the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, officials said. Afterward, he put the girl back in her bed and left her there, prosecutors said.
Officials said Adams didn’t seek any medical attention for the girl and later that day found her dead. They did not specify the age of the child or her relationship to Adams.
“Adams feigned ignorance as to the cause of the victim’s injury,” officials said.
For more than 30 years, the case went unsolved and Adams was not charged in connection with the fatal assault. Then in 2023, a witness came forward saying Adams killed the child, prosecutors said.
“The medical evidence corroborated Adams’ eventual statement related to his guilty plea that he injured the child, which caused blunt force trauma and caused the child’s death,” officials said.
In April 2023, Adams was indicted.
“Tragically this matter took thirty years to resolve,” U.S. Attorney Alison J. Ramsdell said in the release.
Adams was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The Lake Traverse Indian Reservation is in northeastern South Dakota, near the border with North Dakota and Minnesota.
