Patricia (Patti) Adkins was a 29-year-old single mom living in Marysville, OH. Adkins was a supervisor at the local Honda of America plant where she had worked for over 10 years. At the plant, she was also having an on-again, off-again affair with her married coworker whose name has never been released to the public.
Patti Adkins was last seen clocking out of work on June 29, 2001. The plant would then close for one week over the 4th of July holiday.
Adkins told friends that her boyfriend was taking her on a camping trip on their time off work. She said her boyfriend instructed to pack “nothing” for the trip and that she was going to be in a “remote area” of Canada without cellphone service. Adkins said her boyfriend said he would “buy whatever they need” when they arrived. She arranged boarding for her pets and left her 7-year-old daughter in the care of her sister.
Previously, Adkins told her friends that she loaned her boyfriend almost $100,000 and that he told her he was planning to leave his wife to be with her. The money was lent out over several years and came from her savings, retirement accounts, and a second mortgage on Adkins’ home. Adkins thought the money was being used for her boyfriend to buy out his wife’s share of the side business they co-owned. She had recently asked her boyfriend to start paying back the money.
The day of the trip, Patti asked a friend to drive her to her shift at the Honda plant so that she could leave in her boyfriend’s truck straight from work. She told her friend that after work, she planned to hide in the bed of her boyfriend’s truck (per his instructions) while he dropped off a coworker after work, then the two would start their vacation. She brought a small tan bag with blue lingerie she bought at Victoria’s Secret for the trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8SP_07Yx0
Patti Adkins’ sister reported her missing on July 8, 2001 when she never returned from the “camping trip”. No one had seen or heard from Adkins since she left work on June 29. Her home and car were undisturbed.
Police contacted Patti’s boyfriend who said there were never plans for any trip together. He also denied that they’d ever had an affair and said he barely knew her. The coworker he was supposed to give a ride home to on June 29th said the two went to Burger King drive-thru for 45 minutes (he claims it was this busy in the middle of the night when their second shift let out, the Burger King manager disputes this timeline) and then home. The boyfriend’s wife said he came home from work that night at his usual time. The man gave police permission to search his home and they found a new truck bed he said he only used June 29-July 8, when Patti Adkins disappeared. They also found gifts Adkins had told people she had given her boyfriend. He then took and failed a polygraph test. He has quit his job at the Honda plant.
While investigators believe that Adkins was murdered and she was declared legally dead in 2006, they have not built a sufficient case against her boyfriend to arrest him.
