The call came in at 3:17 p.m. on February 5th, 2019.

A woman named Lauren Pottots had gone to check on her mother.

She wasn’t answering the door.

The lights were on inside the Bowman Road home.

Her mother’s phone kept ringing.

No one was moving.

Lauren peeked through a window and saw something covered in a white sheet on the kitchen floor.

Something that looked exactly like a body.

Blood was everywhere.

“I need you to stay calm,” the dispatcher said.

“I can’t,” Lauren whispered back. “There’s blood on the floor.”

What she didn’t know yet was that this was only the beginning.

Twenty-four hours earlier, two other people had been found barely alive just five miles away.

And the man responsible was still out there.

Still breathing.

Still holding the gun.

Part One: The First Crime Scene
February 4th, 5:20 p.m.

A neighbor pulled into a driveway on Vigo Road and saw something that made his stomach drop.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Someone’s come up here and beat these people,” the man said, voice shaking. “They’re about dead.”

“How many victims?”

 

 

 

“Two. A male and a female.”

“Are they conscious?”

“No. They’re bleeding. Lying in the driveway bleeding to death. I need help now.”

The neighbor had seen Rick Adams first.

Fifty years old. Lying face-up on the cold asphalt.

Blood running down into the tire tracks beneath him.

“I looked over and I saw that blood,” the neighbor later told police. “I said, ‘Lord, he’s bleeding out.’”

Then he found Tammy Pottots Williams.

Fifty-one years old.

She was half underneath the mobile home she shared with Rick.

Her throat had been cut.

The neighbor couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

He just started praying.

When first responders arrived, they found a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Rick had been shot at least twice.

Once in the head.

Tammy had been stabbed dozens upon dozens of times.

Her neck was sliced open.

She had been beaten so severely that investigators initially thought she was already dead.

But she wasn’t.

Not yet.

Both victims were still breathing when EMTs arrived.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” one medic asked, kneeling in the blood.

Tammy’s eyes fluttered.

She tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

“Stay with me,” the medic said. “Stay with me, okay?”

They rushed both victims to the hospital.

Rick Adams would never leave.

He died on the operating table.

But Tammy Williams — against all odds, against every piece of medical logic — held on.

Here’s what police noticed immediately at the Vigo Road scene.

A silver sedan parked near the mobile home.

Blood on the door.

Blood on the steering wheel.

The neighbor confirmed: “That ain’t Rick’s car. That ain’t Tammy’s neither.”

So whose was it?

Registration came back to a woman named Leanne Pottots.

Forty-seven years old.

Paralegal.

Recently married.

And also — Rick Adams’s sister.

The dots were starting to connect.

But the picture they formed was still incomplete.

The neighbor had one more thing to share.

“You know, Rick wasn’t alone earlier,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody chased him home. I saw it. Car following close behind. Real aggressive. Rick pulled in, and that other car pulled in right after him.”

“You get a look at the driver?”

“No. But that car… it had a messed-up hood. Flapping up and down while they were driving.”

Police made a note.

A car with a damaged hood.

It seemed like a small detail.

It would turn out to be anything but.

Part Two: The Second Crime Scene
Word spread fast through Ross County.

Two people attacked.

One dead.

One barely hanging on.

And five miles down the road, a woman named Leanne Pottots wasn’t answering her phone.

Her daughter Lauren had heard about what happened to her uncle Rick.

She started calling her mom.

No answer.

She drove to the Bowman Road house.

Lights on.

Car in the driveway.

Phone ringing inside.

No one coming to the door.

That’s when Lauren peeked through the window.

“I saw something on the floor,” she told the dispatcher.

“Covered by a sheet.”

“And there’s blood.”

“Ma’am, do not enter the home. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

“Police are on their way.”

Lauren waited outside with her boyfriend.

When officers arrived, they had to break the door down.

Every entrance was locked from the inside.

Every window was sealed.

“Sheriff’s office! Call out!”

Silence.

“Make yourself known!”

Nothing.

They cleared the first floor room by room.

Then they reached the kitchen.

“Got a body here,” an officer said.

“Looks like… Jesus. Looks like a male.”

Tom Littler. Sixty-four years old.

Leanne’s new husband.

They had been granted a marriage license just one month earlier.

They were planning a Caribbean honeymoon.

Now Tom was lying in a pool of his own blood.

A white sheet had been thrown over him — not carefully, like someone trying to be respectful, but hastily, like someone trying to hide what they had done.

A wooden stick lay in Tom’s hand.

He had tried to defend himself.

It hadn’t worked.

Bullet casings littered the kitchen floor.

Blood splatter covered the cabinets, the refrigerator, the ceiling.

“We’re going to need photos of everything,” the lead detective said.

“I’m starting now,” another officer replied.

“Hold on. We’re getting a call from outside.”

It was Lauren.

She was standing on the lawn, arms wrapped around herself.

“My mom,” she said. “Did you check the basement?”

“Why would she be in the basement?”

“She goes down there. For laundry. For storage. Just… please check.”

The basement stairs groaned under the officers’ weight.

Dark.

Cold.

And then — a shape on the concrete floor.

“Sheriff’s office! Got another body down here!”

“Don’t touch anything. Leave it.”

“I think it’s a female. Yeah. Her hands are bound behind her back.”

Leanne Pottots.

Lying face-down.

A pillow on top of the back of her head.

A gunshot had gone straight through it.

Her pants were pulled down.

She had been sexually assaulted.

Her hands were secured with zip ties.

A pack of the same zip ties sat on the kitchen table upstairs.

Waiting.

Like the killer knew exactly what he was going to do before he even walked through the door.

Three dead.

One clinging to life.

And nothing made sense yet.

Why these people?

Why this level of violence?

Why leave a sheet over one body but not the other?

Lauren Pottots, standing outside her mother’s house in the freezing Ohio air, had a theory.

“My mom just got money,” she told detectives.

“A settlement. A big one.”

“How much are we talking?”

“I don’t know exactly. But it was a lot.”

“And Tom kept cash in the house too,” Lauren continued. “Everyone knew. About five grand. In an old boot.”

“What about jewelry?”

“He just bought her a diamond ring. Expensive. They were married last month.”

Detectives exchanged looks.

When they searched the house, they found:

Empty boots.

No ring on Leanne’s finger.

No wallets. No credit cards.

The money was gone.

All of it.

This wasn’t random.

This wasn’t a home invasion gone wrong.

Someone had walked into that house knowing exactly what they wanted.

And they had found it.

Part Three: The Finger-Pointing
Word spread.

A triple homicide.

A community in shock.

And then the phone rang at the sheriff’s department.

It was a man named James Rinehart.

“Jimmy Reinhardt,” he said when the dispatcher asked his name. “I got information for you.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s Larry Pottots,” Jimmy said. “They call him Bugs.”

“Larry Pottots?”

“Yeah. Tammy’s brother. Leanne’s ex-husband. He’s been running his mouth around town. Said his sister owed him money. Drug money. Pills.”

“You think he did this?”

“I know he did this.”

The detectives listened.

Larry “Bugs” Pottots had motive.

He was Tammy’s older brother.

He was also Leanne’s ex-husband — married for 26 years before they divorced.

Twenty-six years.

That’s a long time to hold a grudge.

And if the rumors were true, Tammy owed him money for pills.

Drug disputes turned violent all the time.

Larry made sense.

Maybe too much sense.

When police went to question Larry, he was already gone.

Had left just before they arrived.

That looked bad.

That looked real bad.

But then something happened that made them pause.

A neighbor’s security camera.

Chillicothe isn’t a big city. People watch out for each other.

This neighbor had footage from the day of the murders.

Two cars.

One chasing the other.

The car in front — the silver sedan registered to Leanne.

The car behind — something smaller. Gray.

With a hood that bounced and flapped as it drove.

Just like the neighbor at Rick’s house had described.

“Mushroom hunters found something,” a deputy said, walking into the detective’s office.

“What kind of something?”

“A purse. Some wallets. Credit cards. And a gun.”

“Where?”

“Woods. Behind London Dairy.”

The detective pulled up a map.

London Dairy.

Where James Rinehart lived.

The same James Rinehart who had called in to point the finger at Larry.

“You want to know what else they found?” the deputy asked.

“Tell me.”

“A knife. With blood on it.”

Detectives went to see Larry Pottots.

Found him at his home this time.

He wasn’t running.

He wasn’t hiding.

He was sitting in his living room, staring at the wall, looking like a man who had just lost everything.

“Larry, we need to ask you some questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where were you on February 4th?”

“Here. Most of the day. Went to get food. Came back.”

“Anyone vouch for that?”

“Receipts. Cameras at the stores. Check them.”

“We will.”

The interrogation lasted hours.

Larry denied everything.

No fights. No arguments. No drug debts.

“I loved my sister,” he said. “I was married to Leanne for 26 years. That doesn’t just go away.”

“You sound like you still care about her.”

“Of course I still care about her. She’s the mother of my children.”

“You know she was killed, right?”

Larry’s face crumbled.

“I know.”

“And Tom?”

“I didn’t like the guy. But I didn’t kill him either.”

The detectives watched him.

The grief looked real.

The confusion looked real.

But so had Jimmy’s confidence when he called in.

Someone was lying.

“One more thing, Larry,” a detective said.

“Sure.”

“You know anyone who drives a gray car? Small. With a messed-up hood. Flaps around when they drive?”

Larry blinked.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Jimmy Reinhardt. He’s got a little gray car. Hood’s been busted for months.”

“The same Jimmy who called us about you?”

“I don’t know who called you. But Jimmy’s the only one I know with a car like that.”

The detectives sat back.

Jimmy Rinehart.

Called in to accuse Larry.

Had a car matching the one on camera.

Lived right near where the murder weapons were found.

And then — just to make things interesting — they checked Leanne Pottots’s credit card activity.

Her credit card.

Which had been taken from her home.

After she was dead.

The charges started rolling in about twenty-four hours after the estimated time of death.

Fast food. Gas stations. Convenience stores.

Someone was having a very busy couple of days.

Someone who wasn’t Larry Pottots.

Part Four: The Arrest
Police went to Jimmy Rinehart’s home.

He wasn’t there.

They checked his usual spots.

Nothing.

They put out a BOLO — be on the lookout — for James A. Rinehart Jr.

Thirty-eight years old.

Self-employed handyman.

Married. Two daughters.

And now, very much missing.

The call came in less than two hours later.

“Ross County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Yeah, hi. I’m calling from the Burger King on Bridge Street.”

“What’s the situation?”

“There’s a guy here. In the drive-thru. Gray car. Hood’s all messed up. He just tried to pay with a credit card and… well, the name on it is Leanne Pottots.”

“Ma’am, do not let him leave.”

“Oh, I already told him there was a problem with the card. Asked him to come inside. He’s sitting in the lobby right now.”

“Stay on the line.”

The body camera footage is something else.

Officers walked into that Burger King like they were walking onto a battlefield.

“He’s in the corner,” the cashier whispered, pointing. “Blue jacket. Gray hat.”

“Sir,” an officer said, approaching quietly. “Can you stand up for me?”

Jimmy Rinehart looked up.

His eyes were calm.

Too calm.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Just stand up. Hands where I can see them.”

He stood.

Slow.

Easy.

Like he had all the time in the world.

“Put your hands behind your back. Right now.”

“You got a reason for this?” Jimmy asked.

“We’ll get to that.”

The officer patted him down.

Found eleven hundred dollars in cash.

Found Leanne Pottots’s credit card.

Found Burger King gift cards — because of course he had Burger King gift cards.

“You have any idea why we might be here?” the officer asked, cuffing him.

“No, sir. I don’t.”

Outside, the gray car sat in the parking lot.

The hood was damaged.

Bouncing slightly in the wind.

Just like the neighbor said.

Just like the camera showed.

Jimmy Rinehart sat in the back of the patrol car, staring straight ahead.

He didn’t ask any more questions.

He didn’t say a word.

But he was smiling.

Just a little.

Just enough.

Part Five: The Interrogation
“I didn’t do anything,” Jimmy said.

The interrogation room was small. Gray. Windowless.

A tape recorder sat on the table between him and the detective.

“Then why do you have Leanne Pottots’s credit card?”

“My girlfriend gave it to me.”

“What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

“Leanne.”

“Leanne what?”

“Leanne… I don’t know. Lee. Something like that.”

“You’re having an affair with a woman and you don’t know her last name?”

“She was married. It was complicated.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Day before yesterday. Maybe the day before that.”

“And where was she?”

“At her house. On Bowman Road.”

“What happened there?”

“Nothing. We hung out. I left.”

The detective leaned forward.

“Leanne Pottots is dead, Jimmy.”

“No she’s not.”

“She is. She was murdered. Along with her husband and her brother.”

Jimmy’s face didn’t change.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. She’s been dead for two days. Which means the credit card in your pocket — the one you’ve been using — was taken from a dead woman.”

Silence.

“Swear to God,” Jimmy finally said. “Swear to God, I didn’t know. That’s why I’ve been trying to call her. For two damn days.”

“You’ve been trying to call a dead woman?”

“I didn’t know she was dead.”

The detective pulled out a photo.

Leanne. Lying face-down in the basement.

Zip ties on her wrists.

A pillow over her head.

Jimmy looked at it for a long time.

Then he looked away.

“Where did you get the zip ties, Jimmy?”

“What zip ties?”

“The ones we found in the kitchen. The ones used to bind her hands.”

“I don’t know anything about zip ties.”

“Your DNA is going to be all over them.”

“I don’t —”

“You know what else we’re going to find? Your DNA on her. Inside her.”

Jimmy’s jaw tightened.

“I didn’t do that.”

“The evidence says different.”

“Then the evidence is wrong.”

The interrogation went on for hours.

Jimmy eventually told a story.

A wild one.

He said he had been at Rick’s house that day. With Leanne. With Rick.

He said Larry “Bugs” Pottots showed up. Started screaming about pills. Attacked Rick.

He said Rick told Larry the pills were at Leanne’s house.

He said he left. Went home. Knew nothing.

He said Larry must have gone to Leanne’s house and killed everyone.

“You expect us to believe that?”

“I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth.”

“The truth is that you used a dead woman’s credit card. The truth is that your car was seen chasing Rick Adams down the road. The truth is that your DNA is going to put you at both crime scenes.”

Jimmy said nothing.

For the first time, he wasn’t smiling anymore.

Part Six: The Evidence
DNA results came back.

Jimmy Rinehart’s DNA was found inside Leanne Pottots.

His DNA was on the packet of zip ties.

Tom Littler’s blood was on the knife found in the woods.

And Jimmy’s DNA was on that knife too.

The gray car with the damaged hood — the one seen chasing Rick Adams — was registered to James Rinehart Jr.

The mushroom hunters who found the gun? They found it less than half a mile from Jimmy’s house.

And Tammy Williams — the woman who had been stabbed dozens of times, who had her throat cut, who somehow survived — she woke up in the hospital weeks later.

She looked at a photo lineup.

She pointed to one face.

“His name is Jimmy,” she whispered. Her voice was still weak. Her throat was still healing. “He’s the one. He killed Rick. He tried to kill me.”

“Why?” the detective asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why.”

Part Seven: The Why
We may never know exactly why James Rinehart did what he did.

He’s never given a full confession.

He’s never explained himself.

But here’s what investigators pieced together.

Jimmy had heard rumors about Leanne and Tom’s money.

The settlement. The five grand in the boot. The diamond ring.

He might have seen something on Facebook. Heard something at a bar. Picked up on gossip floating around Chillicothe.

That’s all it took.

He went to Leanne and Tom’s house on February 4th.

He probably didn’t plan to kill anyone.

Or maybe he did.

Maybe he brought the zip ties for a reason.

Maybe he brought the gun for a reason.

What happened inside that house was unspeakable.

Tom Littler was beaten and shot.

Leanne Pottots was assaulted, bound, and executed with a gunshot through a pillow.

Then Rick Adams walked in.

Maybe he was coming to visit. Maybe he forgot something. Maybe he just had a bad feeling.

Jimmy chased him out of the house. Chased him into his car. Chased him five miles down the road to his own home.

Rick got out of the silver sedan.

Jimmy got out of the gray car with the bouncing hood.

He shot Rick in the driveway.

The blood sprayed across the car door. The steering wheel.

Then Tammy came outside.

She saw what happened.

So Jimmy attacked her too.

Stabbed her over and over.

Cut her throat.

Left her for dead under the mobile home.

He took the money. Took the credit cards. Took the ring.

And then, for the next two days, he lived like nothing had happened.

Bought Burger King. Bought gas. Bought gift cards.

Used a dead woman’s name like it was nothing.

Part Eight: The Sentence
James Rinehart was indicted on multiple charges.

Murder. Rape. Robbery. Burglary. Felonious assault.

The prosecutor laid it all out.

The DNA. The car. The credit cards. The weapons. Tammy’s testimony.

Jimmy’s lawyers pushed for a plea deal.

And in the end, he took it.

Thirty-five years to life.

Three murders. One attempted murder. One sexual assault.

Thirty-five years.

For some people, that would feel like a victory.

For the families of Leanne, Tom, and Rick — it felt like a Band-Aid on a wound that would never fully heal.

Part Nine: Aftermath
Tammy Williams made a full recovery.

It took months. Surgery. Therapy. Nightmares that wouldn’t stop.

But she lived.

She testified.

She looked James Rinehart in the eye and said, “You tried to kill me.”

He didn’t look back.

Lauren Pottots, the daughter who found her mother’s body, the daughter who told police to check the basement — she had to learn how to live with what she saw.

Some days were better than others.

Some days she couldn’t get out of bed.

But she kept going.

Because that’s what you do.

The house on Bowman Road sat empty for a long time.

Neighbors avoided looking at it.

The silver sedan — the one Rick was driving the day he died — was eventually sold at auction.

The gray car with the damaged hood sat in an evidence lot for years.

A reminder.

A ghost.

Part Ten: The Disturbing Question
Here’s what keeps people in Chillicothe awake at night.

James Rinehart wasn’t a monster in the way we usually imagine monsters.

He wasn’t a stranger in a mask.

He wasn’t someone who looked dangerous.

He was a handyman. A husband. A father.

He mowed lawns. He trimmed trees. He power-washed driveways.

He smiled at people in the grocery store.

He waved at neighbors.

He coached his daughters’ soccer games.

And then, for no reason anyone can fully understand, he walked into a house and destroyed four lives.

For money.

For maybe five thousand dollars and a diamond ring.

For the kind of cash that wouldn’t even cover a used car.

That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.

That’s the part that never will.

You can rationalize a crime of passion. You can understand a drug deal gone wrong. You can even wrap your head around a long-simmering family feud.

But this?

This was just greed.

Ugly, stupid, pointless greed.

And greed doesn’t have a reason.

Greed just takes.

The Last Line
James Rinehart sits in a prison cell today.

He’ll be eligible for parole when he’s in his seventies.

Maybe he’ll get out.

Maybe he won’t.

But somewhere in Chillicothe, Ohio — in the houses on Vigo Road and Bowman Road, in the Burger King on Bridge Street, in the woods behind London Dairy — there are people who will never forget.

They will never forget the call that came in at 3:17 p.m.

They will never forget the body under the sheet.

They will never forget the gray car with the damaged hood.

And they will never, ever understand why.