Adair County Jail Inmate Search

The first Adair County jail was built in 1856. It contained the offices for the Treasurer, Auditor, and Recorder, as well. The Sheriff that had it built was Abner Root. There was no formal county jail between 1875 and 1903, due to the fact that the county seat was moved. The next jail was built in 1903 for $11,990. It was a two story building. There were seven rooms for the Sheriff and deputies to live. There was remodeling of those living areas in 1978. They became the Sheriff's main office and a communications room. In 2012, the county built the Adair County Law Enforcement Center, while still keeping the old jail.

The first murder was in 1864. A neighborhood had been having conflicts between residents for several years. A soldier had come home for a visit from the battlefields of the Civil War. He was murdered. The Sheriff was able to find the culprit and he ended up in jail. A mob made up of the murderer's friends came to the jail and battered down the door. Sheriff John Shreves was ahead of them. He took the murderer out the back, hung him from a tree, and filled the body full of bullets.

From 2007 to 2010, mother and son Linda and Terry Nichols worked for the city of Adair. She was the city clerk and he worked for the street's department. While working for the city, they were stealing items intended for city use and taking funds from payments. They pleaded guilty in court where they were ordered to pay back over $83 thousand for the thefts and over five thousand for the audit. For the plea agreement, the charge of felonious misconduct in office was dropped.

In 2015, the city of Casey saw City Clerk Dorothy Dillinger arrested for misappropriation of funds and arson. She had taken city money to have spending sprees at various stores, including Walmart and Victoria's Secret. To cover up her embezzling, she set the Casey City Hall on fire. She ended up in federal court, in which she pleaded guilty. She got five years in a federal prison.