Why? : Apparently Senseless Killing of Grocer Numbs Family

Senseless murders, the kind that leave the victim’s friends and relatives groping for answers, happen only in faraway places--to strangers, Barbara Adams had always thought.

“I was one of those persons who said, ‘That’ll never happen to me,’ � the 50-year-old AT&T; employee said Wednesday in her Carson home.

“I can’t say that now.�

She said she was too numb to understand why her husband, Eddie Warren Adams--the founder of two Baptist churches, an outspoken man who ran for the Compton City Council and the city school board and a frequent donor of food and candy to anyone who approached him--was clubbed to death in his small grocery store on Tuesday night.

“(His death) . . . now is too little for such a life, for such effort, for such caring, for just such a life,� she said.

The body of the 60-year-old Adams was found in an aisle of his A & A Meat Co. grocery store at 310 W. Alondra Blvd., Compton, at 9:15 p.m. by his stepson, Christopher Baskerville, 26, and police officers.

Barbara Adams said she had called police when her husband, who normally closed the store at 8 p.m., did not answer the store’s phone after 6:45 p.m.

Compton Police Detective Walter Nelson said the assailants apparently hit Adams in the back of the head with a baseball bat. They then apparently tried to take the store’s locked cash register through a rear window. It was found in the store near the open window.

No large sums of cash were kept in the store, Nelson said. There had been occasional thefts of small items--potato chips, candy and beer--in the past, but there were no clues as to why the intruders would hurt Adams, Nelson said.

“He was quite popular in the neighborhood,� the detective said.

“Sure, he’d always say ‘hi’ to you when he was out on the (store’s) porch,� said Leonard Picou, who owns a barber shop near the store Adams had operated for 20 years.

It was not uncommon for Adams to extend credit to customers who needed food, the barber said, adding: “He just liked to help people. He was that kind of person.�

Adams, who also maintained a home in Compton, was an aggressive talker who was not bashful about his Republican ties or his support for President Reagan.

The grocer ran unsuccessfully for a City Council seat in 1980 and failed in an attempt to join the school board in 1983.

But he was not discouraged; his wife said he wanted to improve the image of Compton, seen as a high-crime area.

To change that, Adams and his wife, who established the Greater First Baptist Church of Carson several years ago, agreed to help N. L. Ware, a minister who also is a Pasadena police officer, start a new church in the home the couple owned next door to the grocery.

Since its start last year, the Plain Truth Missionary Baptist Church has grown to a congregation of 200 members and regularly feeds 75 youngsters every Sunday morning, Ware said.

A church deacon, Peter Summers, 27, said Adams had planned to start a youth baseball program for the church later this year.

“He felt that if you reach them when they’re young, they’ll be in the right direction when they’re our age,� he said.

Next Sunday was to have been a particularly festive day for Adams. It is the church’s first anniversary. Ware said that just how that celebration will be conducted is now uncertain.

Barbara Adams said she is still committed to the church, but she is not sure about the future of the store.

She remained outside the store Tuesday night while her stepson and police officers went inside.

“I kept hoping he wasn’t inside,� she said.

But she knew that her husband never left the store untended.

“You don’t know how hard you can wish for something not to be true . . . and then, there’s reality,� she said.

On Wednesday, a sign was posted in front of the grocery, telling customers:

“Mr. Adams was killed here last night.�