The Murder of Adam Ashley, May 1979

Adam and his twin brother Marc were born in Palm Springs, Riverside County, CA on May 18, 1964. They have a sister named Terri who is one year older than them. Their father Arthur was killed in a plane crash in March 1968, and afterward their mother Martha struggled to care for her three young children alone.

The brothers, "grew up surfing and skateboarding in the beachside community of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, near San Diego." Adam was a good-natured person who "knew how to relate to other people." He had a good sense of humor and was athletic and musical.

By the time they were teenagers, both twins began to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana. Adam is said to have had anger issues, and would become violent during fights with his siblings.

Adam Ashley. Photo from the City of San Diego Cold Cases page.

In fall 1978 the twins began their freshman year at San Dieguito High School, and the family attended counseling. However, Adam still needed additional support, and his mother believed that he needed a "strong male influence." Adam was eventually placed in the Del Mar home of a foster parent, Eugene Requa, who went by Gene and was known in the area for taking "troubled teens" into his home, as well as "allowing them to hang out and camp in the yard." Adam still kept in contact with his family when staying with Gene, who was 64 years old at the time.

Adam's sister Terri last saw him at school one week before he was last seen alive. They spoke about their mom: Adam thought that their mother must be relieved to no longer have him in the house, which Terri refuted. According to Terri, Adam also said that he was no longer using drugs, and had even quit smoking cigarettes. He seemed calm and composed "for a change."

According to the later police report, Adam was last seen alive at 2:00pm on Wednesday, May 16, 1979 by his foster father Gene at his home at 140 7th St in Del Mar, San Diego County, CA. Adam said that he was going to the beach for a swim.

At about 7:30 or 7:40am the next day, a man riding his bike discovered the body of a young white male lying in the sand just above the surf line on Torrey Pines State Beach. The bicyclist promptly went to a phone booth and called the police, who arrived on the scene at 7:50am.

The body was found 0.5miles south of Carmel Valley Rd and 50ft west of North Torrey Pines Rd, near Lifeguard Tower 4. This is about 1.4mi from Gene Requa's home. The teenager was wearing a white long-sleeved thermal sweatshirt and brown corduroy swim trunks.

He had died from massive trauma to the head: the autopsy states, "Homicide: Struck in head by another person," and the cause of death was "contusions, lacerations, and blunt injuries to the head." Blood was found on a rock several yards away. The boy's face was severely swollen.

There was evidence that the victim was attacked and then dragged onto the beach at low tide. The incoming tide then partially covered the body with sand. Authorities specified that there had been no deliberate attempt by the killer(s) to bury him.

On Monday, May 21, Gene Requa contacted the police to report Adam missing. His description of Adam matched that of the then-unidentified male found four days previously, and police quickly made the connection.

According to the autopsy report, Gene was the one who identified Adam's body for the coroner. However, in a May 2025 news article, Adam's older sister Terri states that she went with her mother to the medical examiner's office to identify the body.

On Friday, May 25, the body was officially announced as being Adam's. He had died the day before his 15th birthday. At the time of his death, Adam was 5'8, 125 lbs, and had curly, shoulder-length, reddish-brown hair.

In a newspaper clipping from the time, detectives stated that the motive appeared to may have been robbery; however, I could not find anything else on this from a reputable source, or if Adam had any money on him when he left home. The clipping stated that "Some personal property was missing."

One user has posted to Reddit a few times about Adam's death, saying that he is Adam's brother-in-law. According to that user, "[Adam] was beaten with rocks by unknown assailants, and left on the shore, apparently in hopes that his body would be pulled into the ocean by the tide. His wallet was empty."

Aftermath

The health of Adam's mother, Martha, suffered because of her loss, and she died of a heart attack less than five years later at the age of 53.

Adam's foster father, Gene Requa, was reportedly a well-known and loved figure in the area. In 1992 he pleaded guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon after reportedly beating a woman in the head with a baseball bat. Requa died by suicide in 2009 at the age of 93.

Adam's siblings are still alive and seeking answers, having set up the website Justice For Adam. As recently as May 2025, his sister Terri gave interviews with both NBC 7 San Diego and CBS News about her brother's murder. She has wondered whether Adam had a disagreement with one of the other boys staying at Gene Requa's home, possibly leading to Adam's murder. If that isn't the case, then Terri believes her brother's death was random.

According to the website his family set up, there is little physical or DNA evidence in Adam's case. Adam's sister Terri has stated that San Diego Police did investigate Gene Requa in Adam's death, however, "they investigated him and they didn't find any evidence."

In May 2025 Sgt Joel Tien of the Cold Case team stated that "'extensive forensic work' has been done on the case over the past five years, but that work was a dead end. Tien said the team is open to any tips, no matter how insignificant, because it might give detectives what they need to solve the case."

Adam's murder is still unsolved. The case was posted in the city of San Diego's cold case database sometime after September 2022.

Similar cases

In 1978 and 1984, the bodies of 15-year-old Barbara Nantais and 14-year-old Claire Hough, respectively, were found in very similar circumstances to each other near lifeguard towers on Torrey Pines State Beach: both girls had been beaten, strangled, and sexually assaulted. Furthermore, both of them had a mutilated breast, as well as sand packed in her mouth and larynx.

It was eventually determined that Claire had been killed by convicted sex offender Ronald Tatro, whose blood was found in several spots on the girl's jeans. He was never charged due to having died before the DNA results came back. Despite the similarities in the cases, Tatro is not a suspect in Barbara's murder, as he had an alibi: he was in custody in Arkansas at the time.

From north to south, the locations of the bodies of: Barbara Nantais (dark blue), Claire Hough (purple), and Adam Ashley (dark green) near Lifeguard Towers 7, 5, and 4, respectively, on Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego. Created by me using Google Maps.

When I first wrote about this case on Reddit, in October 2024, I stated that the murder of Adam Ashley had never been mentioned alongside, let alone thought to be connected to, those of Barbara or Claire. A user claiming to be Adam's niece or nephew commented on that post, stating, "We have followed both cases for years but as far as I know, no one else has explored a possible connection between Adam's murder and the Hough and Nantais cases. You're right that his case is never mentioned alongside theirs. We've also asked the police about it but they seem not to think there's anything there because the girls were sexually assaulted, and Adam wasn't."

However, I have since found a Project Cold Case Facebook post about Adam from June 2022, on which a user commented, "[Barbara Nantais's] case has been linked to another young lady [Claire Hough] that died under similar circumstances [...] No killer has been caught. I'm wondering whether these cases may be connected and that there was a violent serial attacker that set upon the youth at this time, resulting in deaths, and trauma for survivors?"

On May 27, 2025 Barbara's case was mentioned in a CBS News article about Adam's murder. Furthermore, according to an NBC 7 San Diego article from the week prior, Adam's sister Terri, "recalled two high-profile murders of young women along the same stretch of beach within a few years of Adam’s murder. Adam’s case, she said, did not get the same kind of attention."

When I posted about the three cases on Reddit, one user proposed that if Adam's murder is related to the other two, then it's possible that, viewing him from behind in the dark, the killer may have mistaken Adam for a teenaged girl, but didn't commit sexual acts on him like with Barbara or Claire upon realizing he was a boy: Adam was a skinny kid with long, shoulder-length hair that would have looked even longer when wet.

Concluding notes

While I originally found this case while doing my own research, I have also tagged this as a link/connection due to the similar murders mentioned above.

Anyone with information regarding Adam's murder is encouraged to call the SDPD Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293. For anonymous tips, call Crimestoppers at 888-580-8477 or submit the tip online here.