Man’s Visit Home at Lunch Set Up Slaying

At least three afternoons a week Robert Adair would return to the welcoming confines of the Brooktree condominium complex to check the mail, eat a home-cooked lunch and enjoy a brief visit with his wife.

But these simple pleasures of life apparently led to the Sylmar man’s death Tuesday when he walked in on a robber who had tied up and beaten his wife, Jean, police and neighbors say.

Jean Adair, 36, eventually was able to free herself and staggered to a neighbor’s home for help. Police and an ambulance arrived within minutes, but it was not soon enough for her husband. Robert Adair, 40, was already dead on the floor of his home from severe blows to his head.

Noreen Espinoza is a neighbor in the leafy, campus-like complex in the 14200 block of Polk Street, set against the striking heft of the San Gabriel Mountains. She described the Adairs as “very nice people,” and added: “It’s a shame.”

The idyllic backdrop and well-kept surroundings did nothing to calm the fears of residents Wednesday who were clearly unnerved by the crime and talked of tighter security arrangements. “People around here are scared, really scared,” said neighbor Lee Arlington. “They’re talking about moving.”

Arlington was working at his computer at about 2 p.m. Tuesday when he heard someone repeatedly ringing his doorbell, he said.

Grabbing his cane, the 60-year-old retiree limped to the front gate of his condominium to investigate and heard Jean Adair screaming.

“Help me. Help me,” she said again and again. “I need help.”

Scared and worried, and not sure what was happening, Arlington hesitated. “Before I can help you, I need to know what the problem is,” he said.

Arlington said she told him there had been a robbery and that her husband was on the floor and not breathing. Arlington asked if the intruder was still there.

“I don’t know.”

Arlington let her in and called 911. “She had red marks on her chin and tape still attached to her wrists,” he said.

By Wednesday everyone had heard Arlington’s story. Brent Shaw, the Adairs’ next-door neighbor, spent the day at home as workmen installed deadbolt locks and a new alarm system.

“It definitely shakes you,” Shaw said. But, he added: “The odds of it happening again are pretty slim.”

Even so, some residents complained about security at their complex. “This is supposed to be a security building,” Espinoza said.

Shaw speculated that Adair’s wife could have left the garage door open in preparation for her husband’s arrival. “They were known to leave the garage door open,” Shaw said. The attacker could have “walked right in,” Shaw said.

No arrests have been made. Police said Jean Adair, a nurse, and her husband, who also worked in health care, had planned to move in about two weeks.