On April 27, 2012, Jo Ann Bain and her eldest daughter were murdered in Whiteville, Tennessee and the woman's two younger daughters were kidnapped by Adam Christopher Mayes, an Alpine, Mississippi man who had known the family for many years. On May 9, 2012, Mayes was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, having replaced James "Whitey" Bulger on the list. The following day, he and the two girls were spotted in a heavily wooded area; during the capture attempt, Mayes reportedly shot himself in the head and later died from his wounds. The two girls were rescued unharmed.
On August 9, 2013, in a plea bargain agreement, Mayes' wife, Teresa, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to 35 years, minus the 460 days she had already spent in prison. His mother, Mary Mayes, pleaded guilty to two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to 13 1/2 years.
Murders and kidnapping
Jo Ann Bain was the mother of three daughters, Adrienne (b. 1997), Alexandria (b. 1999) and Kyliyah (b. 2004). Her first husband, Mark Johnson, the biological father of Adrienne and Alexandria, signed over his legal rights to the girls to Jo Ann's second husband, Gary Bain, in 2011. Gary Bain had previously been married for 20 years to Adam Mayes' eldest sister, Pamela; they divorced in 2002. Mayes had stayed friendly with Bain and was a frequent visitor to the home.
On April 27, 2012, a day before Adam Christopher Mayes was supposed to help the Bain family move to Arizona, Mayes allegedly killed Jo Ann Bain and her oldest daughter Adrienne and kidnapped the two younger girls, Alexandria and Kyliyah. Gary Bain came home late that night and assumed his family members were sleeping. Only when he could not reach his wife by cell phone and his daughters did not return from school the next day did he report them missing.
Mayes was interviewed by police officers about the Bains' disappearance on April 29. He told police he was the last to see the mother and daughters, but police found no evidence of a crime. On April 30, Jo Ann Bain's SUV was found abandoned on a country road in Tennessee.
Mayes was last seen in Guntown, Mississippi, on May 1; on May 2 he was declared a person of interest in the case, though police still did not suspect a crime.
On or around May 4, Teresa Mayes reportedly told police that her husband had killed Jo Ann and Adrienne in the Bains' garage and that the bodies were buried behind his mobile home. On May 5, investigators uncovered two "badly decomposed" bodies from a shallow grave behind the mobile home; they were identified as the bodies of Jo Ann and Adrienne on May 7.
On May 8, both Mayes' wife Teresa and mother, Mary Frances Mayes, were charged as accomplices and taken into custody.
Mayes was added to the FBI's Most Wanted List on May 9. He was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, especially aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder.
Recovery of Bain girls
Mayes and the two girls were missing for over a week when on May 10, acting on a tip, Mississippi highway patrolmen and state fish and wildlife officers searched a heavily wooded area behind the Zion Hill Baptist Church, one and a half miles from Mayes' home in Alpine.
Officers saw one of the children peeking over a ridge, then spotted the second child, then saw Mayes. The officers told him to put his hands up; he raised only one hand and officers saw a gun in the other. Mayes then shot himself in the head with a 9mm pistol. The Union County sheriff said emergency medical technicians transported Mayes via ambulance to Baptist Memorial Hospital, New Albany, Mississippi, in critical condition. The county coroner pronounced Mayes dead at 8:20 pm
When police found the trio on May 10, the girls said that they had been in the forest for three days without food or water. They were dehydrated and had rashes from poison ivy and insect bites. After Mayes' death, the girls were sent to a Memphis hospital, treated, and released.
Mayes' body, after being left unclaimed and refused by family members, was donated to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville's Body Farm in June 2012.
On July 30, 2012, the FBI announced that it had paid out reward money to several individuals for information leading to the capture of Mayes.