I couldn't help myself when I heard about the Knoxville shootings this morning ... I had to try and find out more about the shooter. I ran a quick Google of the name "Jim Adkisson" and specifically sought out older things that were NOT related to this weekend's tragedy. Here's what I found ...
First, a couple of red herrings: The NFL tight end James Adkisson and the Jim Adkisson who invented the 5 1/4" floppy disk floppy disk were almost assuredly not our man.
Then I came across a New York Times article from 1993 about the Christian Coalition. The first people referenced in the article are a Jim and Christie Adkisson. The article is bylined in Oregon, not Tennessee, but this was also fifteen years ago.
This crosses my mind in connection with the conversation about religion he had with his neighbor Karen Massey ... his anger with the hypocrisy of religion in general very likely stemmed from previous close ties or activism within the CC, which turned to disillusionment.
There's also a comment left at freepress.org that talks about conservative beliefs briefly.
Finally, believe it or not, there's a YouTube video of a couple of hotel lobby musicians, one with the same name as our guy. The video is poor and the performers are shrouded in shadow ... but it's worth remembering that Adkisson pulled his shotgun from a guitar case!
UPDATE TO ABOVE: The YouTube user who posted the video above denies that this is the same Adkisson. I take him at his word.
I know that once we start getting bits of his manifesto document revealed, the personal information will flow fast and furious, but I wanted to share these items and see if any of you could find anything more.