 Adam in 1987 | |
 Adam in 2007 | |
| Adam Murdoch | |
| Portrayed by | Nick Ballard (1987) Rob Farrior (2007) |
| Episode | Offender |
| Status | Alive |
Adam Murdoch was the teenage boyfriend of Tricia, the babysitter of Clayton Hathaway in 1987. Adam would often visit Tricia at the Hathaway home when Clayton's parents Mitch and Tara Hathaway were out, eager for a chance to have sex with her while there were no parents around.
One afternoon, while the Hathaways were out, Adam was raiding their liquor cabinet when he knocked over a glass. Just then, Clayton walked inside in his bare feet and stepped on a shard of glass. Adam quickly grabbed a pair of Clayton's underwear from the laundry hamper to stem the blood flow. As he was washing off the underwear, he tried to calm the crying Clayton by telling him his father had season tickets to the Philadelphia Phillies, offering to take him as long as he didn't tell Tricia.
Another night, Adam and Tricia were making out on the couch when the Hathaways came home. Adam quickly hid in the closet. While hiding, he overheard Clayton showing his friend Johnny Burrell a butterfly knife that someone he called "The Scarecrow" had given him. It would take another hour before Adam was able to sneak out.
Sometime later, while Adam was out of town, Clayton was abducted, raped, and murdered. His father Mitch was soon arrested for the crime.
In 2007, the case was reopened however. Former mail carrier Ernie Grabowski recalled seeing Adam cleaning blood off Clayton's underwear that day, which lead to suspicion falling on him. Adam, by then a father of two sons and a daughter, was appalled at the accusation of being a nincomphile and a murderer. He explained to Detective Lilly Rush and Lieutenant John Stillman how Clayton had been hurt accidentally and told them about the knife he'd seen Clayton holding. When asked why he never told anyone about the knife, he admitted he'd forgotten it by the time he snuck out of the house. He added it seemed somewhat irrelevant after Mitch was arrested, but conceded that "just goes to show, you never can tell."