Ira Adams, a 29-year-old Black man from Queens, was found shot to death on March 19, 1984, inside a parked U-Haul truck that police determined had been stolen. A concerned citizen’s call brought officers to the vehicle; investigators also found a note with a nearby address, about six blocks away. At that address they discovered Adams’s live-in girlfriend, Karen Jefferson, shot in the head and chest, turning one apparent killing into a linked double homicide across Queens.

Detectives tied Adams and James Edward Daniels to a burglary ring operating in Queens and developed a working theory that a dispute over money led to Adams’s slaying and Jefferson’s killing, allegedly to eliminate a witness. State and federal warrants were issued for Daniels and stakeouts were mounted, but he eluded capture and later died during a separate violent encounter, so the Queens killings did not reach a courtroom.

Does anyone remember Adams, Jefferson, their neighborhood, or have information that could explain what happened between the truck and the home?