Brittny Marie Adams

Name: Brittny Marie Adams

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder: July 17, 2013

Date of arrest: July 17, 2013

Victim profile: Gary Bell Edens, 51

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, USA

Status: Pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 155 months (nearly 13 years) in prison on February 27, 2014.

Brittny Marie Adams is an American woman convicted of the murder of 51-year-old Gary Bell Edens. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 155 months in prison in February 2014. Also convicted was Jonathan Rush, 29.

On July 17, 2013, Adams and Rush drove to Edens' home in search of her car. The couple testified that Adams had been abandoned in Topeka by two women who stole her car. When they arrived at the home in the 600 block of Michigan Street in Lawrence, they knocked on the door and were answered by Gary Edens. Also present was Edens' eldest son, Jeremy.

Soon after their arrival, Adams and Rush engaged in a violent altercation with both Gary and Jeremy Edens. During the fight, Adams and Rush both drew handguns; a struggle ensued to take control of the handguns, causing a shot to fire. Gary Edens fell to the floor as he had been shot in the head at close range. Adams and Rush then fled the scene in Rush's Pontiac Grand Am and made their way back to Topeka.

En route to Topeka, Adams had thrown her handgun from the window of the car along Interstate 70. She also discarded Rush's handgun from the window shortly before being stopped by a Shawnee County Sheriff's lieutenant about 20 minutes after the shooting. Both Adams and Rush denied it was their own gun that had fired.

Adams was arrested and charged with first-degree murder following a December preliminary hearing. This hearing featured testimony from a former cellmate who said that Adams had bragged about killing Edens. On January 17, 2014, Adams reached a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder. As part of the plea agreement, Adams is required to serve her prison sentence without filing departure motions related to sentencing or requesting probation.

Rush, meanwhile, was arrested on suspicion of lesser charges, including aggravated assault, obstruction and criminal possession of a firearm. Douglas County was forced to dismiss these charges when the criminal firearm possession charge was taken up in federal court. Rush pleaded guilty to the federal charge on November 18, 2013, and was sentenced to a 40-month sentence in federal prison. Rush had a prior conviction for criminal possession of a firearm, in Shawnee County in 2005.