January 07, 2025
Twenty-five-year old Adele Easterly was found dead on November 6, 1979, in Arcadia, Florida.
Her body was found at her workplace, The Farm Store, which at the time was located along U.S 17 and North Washington Loop Road in Punta Gorda, Ridge Harbor, Florida.
Adele was an assistant manager at the store. A total of $7.34 had been stolen from the cash register, and Adele's body bore two gunshot wounds.
She was shot once in the back at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun, and once in the left temple with the barrel pressed up against her head.
Her body was found by an on-duty Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Road Patrol Deputy named John J. Greer.
Greer said he was patrolling that night when he noticed a “suspicious vehicle” at the scene, and went to check it out. He quickly discovered the victim’s body and radioed it in to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s dispatch center at approximately 1:40am.
A couple of months earlier, Greer’s wife, Jackie Greer, had died of what was ruled a suicide.
John Greer claimed to have been asleep at the time of his wife’s supposed suicide. He claimed to hear a "pop" that woke him up, and searched the house to find his wife dead in the closet, which had smoke coming out of it.
At least one suspect was questioned in Adele's murder, however, was found to have no involvement. Deputies at the Charlotte County Sheriff’s office would later admit that they had another suspect in mind, one of their own - John Greer.
With forensic technology unavailable to them in the later seventies, they lacked the hard evidence they needed to investigate Greer as a suspect, and without any other leads, the case went cold.
The death of Jackie Greer made some deputies uneasy, and Greers proximity to Adele Easterly’s murder added a new layer of suspicion.
According to media outlets, around a decade later, in 1986, a friend of the victim said Adele had been having an affair with a married man who was a Sheriff’s deputy with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s office.
The friend said she was too afraid to come forward at the time for fear of repercussions at the hands of Greer.
She added that John Greer would often come into the store at night to “protect” Adele, and said the firearm Green had with him did not appear to be his on-duty police issued firearm.
The friend said Greer had told Adele that he informed his wife of their affair and said he wanted a divorce.
Greer said he and his wife had struggled over his police-issued revolver, claiming his wife had said she was going to commit suicide with the firearm.
Greer allegedly told Adele that during the struggle the gun fired, killing his wife. According to the friend Adele was scared of Greer and what he was capable of.
Jackie Greer's case was reopened in the winter of 1986, and experts were brought into reexamine evidence, such as the blood splatter pattern at the scene of the death.
This crime scene investigator came to the conclusion that, although he was unable to conclusively determine if Jackie Greer's death was a suicide or homicide, he was able to say that from the evidence presented to him, the findings did not match up with Greer’s timeline of events that night.
John Greer was off duty at the time of his wife’s death on August 27, 1979, and was the one who called it in.
The nature of the death felt off to investigators, however, again, there was no evidence to suggest John Greer was involved with his wife’s death.
The following year, on October 3rd, 1980, Greer was suspended. He resigned from his position that same day.
Media outlets report that Greer held a pilot’s licence, and that he went on to work in other police departments on the West Coast.
On September 29, 1980, a woman was found dead in a vehicle in a secluded area of Port Charlotte. She had been reported missing by her husband nine days earlier. A suicide note and an empty bottle of pills were found inside the vehicle, however, due to advanced decomposition, the cause of death was difficult to predict.
The woman was an acquaintance of John Greer, and her husband told deputies that Greer used to "follow her around" and appeared to be pursuing a sexual relationship with her.
In 2016, a former Explorer with the Sheriff’s office came forward to detectives, saying she had been sexually assaulted by Greer multiple times, and that she had not come forward previously because he had threated to kill her.
The woman told detectives that during one such assault, Greer had threatened her, saying: “Ask them dead bitches like Adele Easterly what happened when they say 'no' to me.”
She said that on the night of Adele Easterly's murder, she had been working dispatch, and saw Greer return to the Sheriff’s office building with what appeared to be a long firearm in one hand, and what could have been blood on one of his hands. He entered the building looking worse for wear, and reappeared again looking clean and showered.
In April 2023, detectives tracked down John Greer to a care facility in Kingsport, Tennessee, to find him bedridden and weak.
They questioned him and he confessed to shooting both Adele Easterly and Jackie Greer.
Since John Greer’s health was in such decline, it was obvious he would not be fit to stand trial. Greer died at the care center on March 2, 2024.
Detectives are now looking at cold cases from the time Greer was active in Charlotte County to determine if he had any involvement.
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