Transient rail rider guilty of murder

Transient rail rider Michael Elijah Adams pleaded guilty Thursday to second degree murder in connection with a 2000 Roseville homicide.Adams was arrested in June by detectives from the Roseville Police Department in conjunction with the Placer County Cold Case Unit for the murder of John Semler Owens. On Jan. 21, 2000, utility workers found the body of Owens, a 46-year-old transient freight-train rider, on a gravel service road next to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, near 1701 PFE Road. It was determined that Owens had been murdered by blunt force trauma to his head. Investigators suspected Adams, Owens' freight-hopping companion who identified himself to police as Michael A. Thomas, but were unable to locate him. In 2004, Roseville detectives submitted DNA evidence collected from the crime scene to the national database. California Department of Justice criminologists linked Adams' DNA to Roseville's homicide case after he was arrested in San Bernardino County for robbery in 2010. The Eugene Police Department in Lane County, Ore., had also issued a warrant for Adams on drug charges. On May 17, Adams was arrested in Vancouver, Wash., on unrelated charges and then transferred to Lane County to face his charges there. Thereafter, Roseville police investigators went to the Lane County jail to interview Adams and obtained a warrant for his arrest in connection with the Roseville homicide. According to earlier reports, Adams told a deputy in Oregon that he was an "enforcer" with a train hopping gang known as the Freight Train Riders of America.Adams will be sentenced on Dec. 15 and is facing 15 years to life in prison. ~ Toby Lewis