A murder late Tuesday in suburban Kansas City has left a Mason City native dead and another Mason City native jailed on a murder charge. The Kansas City Star newspaper reports that court records show that 37-year-old Michael Adams Junior is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 36-year-old Amber Hartwig. Both were 1991 graduates of Mason City High School.
Court records say that Hartwig’s 18-year-old daughter found her mother dead on the floor of the couple’s house with her father sitting next to her smoking a cigarette. Adams was also shot in the incident at about 10:30 PM in Belton, Missouri, which is about 20 miles south of downtown Kansas City. Police say they think Adams also shot himself and sustained a superficial wound to his chest after shooting Hartwig in the head with a 45-caliber handgun.
The court records say that on the night of the shootings, Adams attempted to jump from the car during a family trip to the grocery store and was restrained by his daughter. After returning home, Hartwig told the children she was leaving for the night and would take them with her. The daughter said that moments later she heard gunshots, called 9-1-1 and stated that Adams had shot Hartwig, with the dispatcher telling her to get her brother and get out of the house.
Adams apparently for a year or two had been considering a sex change operation as he was dressing as a woman, taking hormones to grow breasts, and was using the female name of Mischelle Sabrina Adams on his Facebook account.