New details of the suspected killer of a 14-year-old girl from Texas emerged this week after investigators were able to collect valuable evidence through the victim’s phone.
Text messages exchanged between Silsbee High School cheerleader Tristan Dilley and 19-year-old Paul Audrey Adams were discovered after police launched an investigation into her death on Sunday.
Adams was later found dead along a rural road from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Paul Audrey Adams (right), 19, was identified as the last person who spoke with 14-year-old Tristan Dilley
Jasper County Sheriff Mitch Newman told the Beaumont Enterprise that Dilley was killed Sunday at her home in Buna after her family had gone out shopping.
Dilley stayed behind at the house, saying she was tired and wanted to rest from a dance at her school the night before.
When the family returned, ‘her mother hollered at her and when she didn’t answer, she told her brother to go upstairs and wake her up,’ Newman said.
That’s when the 13-year-old boy made a grizzly discovery.
Newman says the girl was found in a second-floor room with a two gunshot wounds to the head.
The family of a Silsbee teen thought she was still asleep when they first checked on her but later made a horrible discovery when she was found fatally shot in bed Sunday evening
When investigators searched phone records they discovered Adams was 19-years-old and not 16 as Dilley’s family believed
Authorities noted that there was no forced entry into the home nor signs of a struggle anywhere in the house, leading investigators to conclude that Dilley was most likely acquainted with the killer.
When detectives searched her phone, they found that a person named Adam was the last person in contact with Dilley.
The family confirmed that Dilley spoke of a 16-year-old boy with whom she began to communicate.
Investigators later searched phone records, and discovered that Dilley was actually speaking with the Paul Audrey Adams.
‘From what we could gather, they were trying to see each other when her mother was gone,’ Newman said.
Shortly thereafter, authorities set out to track Adams’ cellphone in order to locate his whereabouts.
He was later pinged to a wooded area in Orange County located on the Texas-Louisiana border.
Jasper County Sheriff deputies were able to track Adams’ location to a secluded stretch of FM 1135 in Orange County on Monday (Pictured: Memorial held for Tristan Dilley)
An all night search failed to track Adams down, but authorities caught a break when he called his mother Monday morning while police had come to question her at her home.
Although Adams admitted to being at Dilley’s house the night of the murder, he maintained that he was not the one who shot her, Newman said.
Instead, Adams claimed that an intruder was responsible for Dilley’s death, and that he ran from the residence because he was scared.
Jasper County Sheriff deputies were able to track Adams’ location to a secluded stretch of FM 1135 in Orange County around 11:30 a.m. on Monday, according to the Enterprise.
Newman said that Adams had tried to set up camp at the site and that ‘It didn’t look like he had been there long.’
When the officers attempted to approach him, Adams took his own life.
‘You say you get used to it, but you just don’t,’ Newman said. ‘They were both seasoned officers. But no matter how long you are on the force, you don’t ever want to see that.’
A preliminary test on Adams’ weapon showed the same revolver to shoot himself that was used to kill Dilley, The Enterprise reported.
‘He ruined two families,’ Newman said. ‘Not just her’s, but he ruined his too.’
Police said that Adams had written a suicide note, which will be made public in the coming days.
Tristan Hope Dilley was born October 3, 2002 in Beaumont, Texas. She was a cheerleader and student athlete who friends described as kind, sweet and compassionate.