Adel murder remains unsolved after 40 years
By Charles Shiver
July 29, 2026, marks the 40th dark anniversary involving the unsolved murder of Adel businessman Wayne Taylor, who passed away at the age of 50 on July 29, 1986.
Actually, Mr. Taylor, owner of Taylor Cash & Carry on Elm Street in Adel, was shot and killed Monday night, July 28, 1986, in an apparent robbery inside the store. However, his obituary states that he died Tuesday morning, July 29, 1986, at Adel Memorial Hospital.
The front page of the Wednesday, July 30, 1986, issue of the Adel News had the shared headline, “Night of Murders,” for two horrific stories. One article was about Mr. Taylor. The other article was about Jennifer Atkins, a 3-year-old girl being murdered the night of July 28 or early morning hours of July 29 in an apartment at the I-75 exit in Sparks. I have already written at length about the latter terrible crime.
The weather in late July 1986 was very similar to what it is today, four decades later: A record heat wave during the day, setting the stage for a night of frenzy and death back then.
According to the Adel News Tribune’s article, Wayne Taylor, owner of Taylor’s Cash & Carry, was pronounced dead on arrival at Memorial Hospital after police found him lying on the floor behind the counter of his store. Police said the store was dark except for one small light inside, but the front door was unlocked when they arrived.
[Then-]APD Cpl. C.H. Pafford says that a call came in just after midnight Monday about shots being fired at Taylor’s. The caller also said that several people had been seen running from the store about the time the shots were heard.
Pafford says that Taylor was shot in the stomach and four empty shells were found near the door. A trail of apparent blood drops ran from the drink cooler near the front of the store to the counter where Taylor was found.
[Then-]Adel Police Chief Harvey Phillips said that the store has been sealed and will be checked by the state crime lab. An autopsy was to be performed, Phillips said.
No arrests have been made and the police have no suspects at this time, Phillips said. However, the investigation is continuing.
Taylor was a member and choir director at First Assembly of God in Adel, where he also taught Sunday school for many years. He was involved in many Christian and church-related activities throughout the community, including singing in gospel quartets and leading song services during revivals at various churches.
A follow-up article on the front page in the following week’s issue is headlined “Possible lead in Taylor case fizzles.” The article states:
A possible lead in the Wayne Taylor homicide last week turned out to be connected to a robbery that had not been reported to police, says [then-]APD detective J.E. Hill.
Hill said that he, Police Chief Harvey Phillips, [then-]Sheriff Charlie Bryant, and a GBI agent went to Jasper, Florida, last week after receiving a call about an Adel Banking Company bag that had been found in a car stopped by Florida police.
“We thought the money bag might have come from Wayne’s store,” Hill said. “But the bag turned out to have been stolen from King Frog.”
Taylor was killed last Monday night when he was shot at his store. His assailants apparently entered the store while Taylor was closing. Hill said that an autopsy, performed in Adel last week by a pathologist from Valdosta, showed that Taylor died of massive internal bleeding from an abdominal wound. The victim also sustained gunshot wounds in the wrist and thigh, Hill said. He added that the shots were fired from a .25-caliber gun.
“At the time we went to Jasper, the bank bag had not been reported stolen from King Frog,” Hill said. “However, after we returned and started trying to trace the bag, the sheriff’s office got a call that a bag containing $2,500 had been stolen from King Frog.”
The two men arrested in Florida, with the King Frog bank bag in their car, are Joshua Ford, 22, of Atlanta, and Arthur J. Woods, 23, of Tampa, Florida. They have been charged with burglary by the Adel Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
All the money was recovered and has been returned to the owners, Hill said. The investigation into Taylor’s death is continuing, he added.
The murder understandably had local business owners and employees rattled, but they were prepared to defend themselves.
An article in the same issue as the follow-up story was headlined, “Robber changes mind when confronted with gun.” The article states:
Cindy Yeomans of Adel knows how to get a would-be robber to change his mind about robbery – and then some.
When a customer entered J&R Cash & Carry food store Monday night, put some items on the counter, then pulled a knife and told Cindy to put the money from the cash register into a bag, Cindy calmly reached down and pulled a .38 on the robber.
“He jumped back when he saw the gun,” Cindy said.
Did he say anything?
“Yeah-he told me he’d pay for the stuff on the counter!”
Cindy has been robbed twice before at convenience-type stores, but this is the first time she’s pulled a gun.
Would she have used it?
“If I had to,” she replied.
Cindy said Tuesday that she has resigned from her job clerking in the convenience store.
“Being robbed three times is enough,” she said.
The point of this article is not to sensationalize the murder of Mr. Taylor, but to see if the details may jar someone’s memory enough that new clues may emerge. There is no statute of limitations on murder. I know people close to the case may have their own suspects in mind. Of course, those who committed the murder might have already faced justice as a result of their involvement in subsequent crimes, or have gone on to their eternal punishment for what they did to Mr. Taylor.
To me, and this may be a reach, there are some similarities in the Taylor case to the slaying of Claude Norris Woods nearly 13 years earlier.
In 2019, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released a poster seeking information in one of Cook County’s oldest “cold” murder cases.
Claude Norris Wood was shot and killed at his business (a country store/gas station) at the intersection of Fellowship Road and Val-Del Road on Friday, Sept. 28, 1973. He was 66 years old at the time. The case was very much in limbo for years, until the GBI launched an effort to clear cold cases and contacted Mr. Wood’s descendants.
According to an article in the Wednesday, Oct. 3, 1973, issue of The Adel News, authorities were searching for two Black men for questioning in the slaying and a white, late model pickup truck that might have been the getaway vehicle. A $2,000 reward had been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the shooting death.
Mr. Wood, a prominent resident of the Fellowship Community and a former County Commissioner (from 1951 to 1953), was pronounced dead upon arrival at Smith Hospital shortly after the shooting. A salesman who had stopped by the store on his rounds had found Mr. Wood lying on his back behind the meat counter. A doctor’s examination showed that Mr. Wood had been shot in the back. The State Crime Lab removed the bullet and identified it as a .38-caliber projectile in this case.
While researching the Taylor case, I decided to visit Mr. Taylor’s grave site in Wilkes Cemetery, one of the two oldest in the county, and pay my respects. Mr. Taylor is buried next to his beloved wife Linda, who passed away on Nov. 22, 2021.
Wilkes Cemetery is located behind Community Calvary Holiness Church on Community Church Road, so far off the beaten path that I saw a deer run across the road in front of my truck while I was driving there at noontime. The earliest known grave dates back to 1842, but the late historian Dillard Ensley once stated he believed people were probably being buried there as early as the late 1830s.
