Waterloo man charged in Johns murder

A Waterloo man who had long been suspected as a person of interest in the death of Michael Johns in 2017 has been formally charged with first degree murder, according to a press release issued by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
           
Twenty-seven-year-old Armando Adame III, who is currently serving a prison sentence on federal gun charges, was arrested on Tuesday as the result of a joint investigation between the Iowa DCI, the Grundy County Sheriff’s Office and the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, after a warrant was issued on Monday. Johns, a 28-year-old Grundy Center man, went missing for over a month before his body was found south of Charles City on December 1, 2017.
           
An autopsy revealed that Johns died by a shotgun wound to the head in a manner consistent with a homicide. The criminal complaint against Adame, which was released on Tuesday, indicates that video, cell phone and witness records indicate that he, Johns and another individual were seen together on October 25, 2017, and traveled in the areas around Black Hawk, Grundy, Tama, Butler, Marshall, Buchanan and Floyd Counties. The last traceable activity on Johns’s cell phone occurred at 6:05 a.m. that morning.
           
About three weeks later, Adame admitted to police officers that he was with Johns on the night of his disappearance but denied any knowledge or involvement, and during a search, an illegal sawed off 12-gauge shotgun was found at his residence.
           
The Iowa DCI’s lab analysis revealed that some of the 12-gauge ammunition in Adame’s possession was within the size range of the wound found on Johns’s body at the time of his death. 
 
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