Adrianne Leah Reynolds was born on September 12, 1988 in El Dorado, Arkansas to her birth mother, 16-year-old Carolyn. Carolyn’s mom, Beverly & her husband, Tony Reynolds, adopted Adrianne. In 1992, when Adrianne was three, Beverly & Tony divorced, but Tony maintained his relationship with Adrianne & continued to visit her & make his child support payments. In 1995, Beverly, Carolyn & Adrianne moved to Longview, Texas & despite the distance, Tony remained a fixture in Adrianne’s life. As Carolyn entered adulthood, she got married & had another child & at this point, she wanted Adrianne back but the household proved to be unstable. Carolyn divorced & remarried & by age twelve, Adrianne was acting out & had faced multiple assault charges & a stay in rehab. Issues within the house continued & in 2003, the state of Texas removed Adrianne from Carolyn’s care. Not wanting to place Adrianne in the foster system, Carolyn reached out to Tony who had relocated from Arkansas back to his home state of Illinois & was living in East Moline.
Tony had married his high school sweetheart, Joann who was the mother of two boys. After speaking with Carolyn, they agreed to move 14-year-old Adrianne to live with them & entered her into Glenview Middle School. The new living situation was very tumultuous & Adrianne struggled to get through the school year, every day a battle. Adrianne wanted to desperately move back to Texas to be with her mother. She moved back but it was very short-lived & Carolyn & Adrianne could not see eye-to-eye so after only four months, she moved back to Tony & Joann’s house in East Moline in November of 2004 when Adrianne was 16-years-old. Taking Adrianne’s behavioral issues into account, Tony & Joann decided to enroll her into the Black Hawk Outreach Center in order to earn her GED as the first step before she hoped to go on to join the United States Marine Corp. This was an alternative high school that helped teens who struggled at traditional schools. Adrianne also got a job at the local Checkers fast food restaurant where she was known as a hardworking, reliable employee.
Adrianne was considered as beautiful, charismatic, loyal, protective & fun-loving. Joann remembers that she loved to hear her stepdaughter sing & they eventually came to enjoy their time with Adrianne, everyone settling into their routines. Adrianne absolutely loved to sing & would spend hours preparing for a school talent show; she was such a talented singer that Joann wasn’t able to distinguish Adrianne from the radio. Tony & Joann described Adrianne as spunky & full of life.
As Adrianne started school, like most teenagers, she desperately wanted to make friends & fit in. The kids referred to her as “Texas” because of her cute southern accent. She met a boy, 17-year-old Cory Gregory & the two began spending time together, eventually talking on the phone for four to five hours at a time.
Adrianne also began to form friendships with other females, one was Cory’s close friend, 16-year-old Sarah Kolb. When Tony met Sarah, he was not impressed & said that she seemed like a freak & a thug. He said she was dressed entirely in black & had piercings. described her as Goth which was something that Adrianne wasn’t into. They felt that Adrianne just wanted friends & had the personality of wanting to be friends with everyone. Sarah was described as a popular girl & it was said that Cory followed her around like a puppy; he was absolutely in love with her.
Sarah & Cory were both fans of the band the Insane Clown Posse which is an American hardcore hip hop duo & the two considered themselves Juggalos which are what the group’s dedicated followers are referred to. Sarah had dark streaks in her hair, multiple face piercings & was said to have an attitude. Like Adrianne, she also struggled in school. Cory was described as shy & soft spoken & felt that Sarah was the one person he could be his true self around. Initially they were romantically involved, but by this time, Sarah had ended that & moved on to dating new people. She had a new boyfriend but maintained her close friendship with Cory & he harbored an ongoing love for her. The two were inseparable & often skipped classes to smoke weed together.
Many felt that Sarah thrived on being the center of attention & loved the fact that she was able to openly date while continuing to receive adoration from Cory. It was Cory that introduced Adrianne & Sarah & the two became instant friends. Cory began to feel jealousy as the friendship progressed & Sarah began showing more attention to Adrianne. Things turned romantic & the two wrote letters to each other, Sarah discussing her bixsexual status & Adrianne’s bi-curiousness.
Sarah’s group of friends rented a house in Rock Island & this place quickly turned into a party spot. One night, Sarah brough Adrianne to the house & told her that she was cool with Adrianne hooking up with someone that night. She also spread the word around that Adrianne was there to get some action. As the party continued, Adrianne complained of a headache & was offered to lie down in the basement away from the noise. After she was directed to a bedroom, another boy named Kory was sent down “to check on her.” Only days after the party, Adrianne’s character was dragged through the mud & disparaging names were spread around school to describe her. It was clear these issues were stemming from Sarah which was very confusing to her. Adrianne tried to smooth things over & rebuild the friendship & it seemed that the more Sarah pushed her away, the harder Adrianne tried.
In the meantime, Joann & Tony were noticing changes in Adrianne that were concerning; her appearance was changing to match the style of Sarah’s, her attitude was becoming unpleasant & she’d even made hints at suicide. Adrianne was taken to a counselor & prescribed medication & things seemed to settle down & Adrianne’s confidence seemed to be returning. Adrianne’s relationship with Cory began to grow, the two talking on the phone & sharing notes.
Two months on at her new school, Tony felt that things were going well. It was the evening of Thursday, January 20, 2005 & Tony said goodnight to Adrianne, knowing he would be out the door at 4 am for his truck driving job. They said “I love you” to each other & Tony headed to bed. The next morning, Friday, January 21, Joann woke Adrianne up for school & asked her if she was working that evening & Adrianne told her she was scheduled at 5 pm.
When school ended & 5 pm was approaching, Joann came home & realized that Adrianne hadn’t come home. Normally she would be home at noon to complete her chores & head to work. It was clear she hadn’t been home to change into her Checkers uniform which sat untouched on her bed. Tony said that despite the fact that his daughter wasn’t an angel, she’d never not come home from school. At that point, they drove over to Checkers but Adrianne had never shown up for her shift. After calling around to friends & finding no sign of Adrianne, at 8 pm, Joann & Tony contacted police to report Adrianne missing. The police considered the possibility that Adrianne could be a runaway but she hadn’t packed any belongings or picked up her paycheck at work.
When kids at school were spoken with, they informed police that Adrianne left school that day at lunchtime with Sarah, Cory & another boy. Police called Sarah to see if she had seen Adrianne since. She confirmed that she’d seen her that day between 12:30-1 pm & said that Adrianne hadn’t wanted to be dropped off at home so they dropped her at a nearby McDonald’s, indicating that she didn’t want her parents to see her riding in a car with a boy. She also indicated that there was another occasion when Adrianne told her parents that Cory was just Sarah’s brother. Sarah said that the McDonald’s was right across from Adrianne’s house & she hadn’t seen her or heard from her since.
Sarah suggested the idea that Adrianne could have run away & voiced concern about her friend. She asked police if they would please contact her if they heard anything. Tony spoke with police & said that it was true that he didn’t approve of Adrianne riding around with boys, but Sarah’s story didn’t make sense to him since it was only noon when she was said to be dropped off & he wouldn’t have come home from work until hours later. He said that his daughter is well aware of the fact that he doesn’t come home from work that early & this idea scared him.
Tony & Joann drove around, searching the streets for any sign of Adrianne, desperately trying to find her. Tony did not believe Sarah’s story & felt that had she dropped her off, she would be home. As they drove, they talked & began to wonder if Adrianne’s disappearance had something to do with Sarah & Cory especially since only days early, she had confided in Joann about her interest in Cory & worried this would be a problem for Sarah. Joann said that Adrianne told her that she had to conceal her friendship with Cory from Sarah in fear that she would be jealous. Based on what he was hearing, Tony felt that Sarah was likely the type of girl that wanted to be in control of every situation.
It would eventually be discovered that Cory learned early on that Sarah was a very controlling person which he actually liked & felt was an important part of their friendship. He said that he met Sarah at the mall & they ended up smoking weed behind Gordman’s Department store & from there, they began hanging out every day. Cory had been a previously good student & fun-loving boy but by sophomore year, he’d become heavily involved in pot, heavy metal music & Sarah Kolb & those that knew him felt that this consumed the boy he once was. He became sullen, withdrawn & even violent at times. Cory said he was attracted to the way that Sarah dressed in her big baggy pants & black band shirts. They dated, but only for a few weeks until Sarah said she just wanted to be friends.
Sarah eventually convinced Cory to to transfer to her school where she had the reputation of being a very angry girl. She made a journal entry, “It seems as if everyone is driving me crazy, and all I want to do is slaughter them like the f***ing sheep they are!” Cory said that Sarah wasn’t angry about anything in particular but she had an anger problem & got mad over the smallest things. He said when she was upset, she was off the wall & would scream & throw things.
Cory’s parents, Bert & Teresa Gregory had never witnessed Sarah’s anger first-hand but they did worry about how infatuated their son had become with Sarah, despite her ending their romantic relationship. Teresa said that Cory desperately wanted to be Sarah’s boyfriend & likely just thought if he hung in there long enough, she would come around to the idea. She said he was exceptionally loyal to her.
Cory expressed his feelings toward Sarah in a letter & wrote, “I love you. I have since I first laid eyes on you.. You are all I think about.. You are the only one I felt I could speak my emotions & I want you to know I’ll always be there for you.”
Adrianne’s arrival in November of 2004 disrupted this relationship. When Sarah & Adrianne wrote to each other, they began asking innocent get-to-know you questions, like “what’s your favorite color?” Or, “what’s your favorite band?” Sarah said she liked the color purple & heavy metal music. They discussed dating each other & the sexual tension was obvious. Adrianne asked Sarah in a letter, “What’s the most you’ve done with a girl? Are you bisexual or straight lesbian?” Adrianne implied that she was bisexual which was something Tony hadn’t known. After the house party in December, their relationship crumbled after Sarah was jealous that Adrianne was getting attention from other boys. Cory believes it was also because she wanted Adrianne’s attention.
Upset by the rejection, Cory said that Adrianne called Sarah every day in order to repair the friendship but she would just pick up the phone & yell or just hang up on her. On December 15 Adrianne wrote & asked Sarah why she didn’t talk to her anymore & on December 30, she wrote saying that Sarah was just looking for a way not to be her friend. Joann & Tony were completely unaware of these letters but Joann did know that Sarah was bad-mouthing & even threatening Adrianne.
Joann said that Adrianne told her that she was scared of Sarah & that there had been a lot of fighting at school; Sarah would yell at her & tell her to commit suicide. Adrianne continued to write, pleading with Sarah to allow them to start over & be friends, “why do you hate me so much & why do you want me to die?” Cory indicated that he & Adrianne had only kissed a couple of times; he said when Sarah found out, she got mad & hung up on him. Cory talked with his mom about the situation & she stressed that he wasn’t dating her & she had no right to tell him who he can & cannot be friends with. The next day, Cory & Sarah made up but she remained furious at Adrianne & wrote about it in her journal on Friday January 21, 2005, the day that Adrianne went missing: “Stupid b!tch needs to back off my Kool-aid! She’s going to give him a note. Yeah well I’ll f***ing kill her.” In contrast to what she wrote, Sarah ended up being nice to Adrianne that day when she saw her & invited her to lunch & dropped her off at the McDonald’s. Cory wasn’t surprised by this since he feels that Sarah will hate someone one day & be friends with them the next.
Sarah was born into a military family that frequently moved around & in 1996, while living in Idaho, her parent’s divorced & Sarah returned to Illinois with her mom. As Sarah moved into her teenage years, her relationship with her mom was very strained as her attitude soured & her defiance grew. Her mom remarried & Sarah didn’t get along with her stepdad & rarely saw her biological father who remained in Idaho. Sarah had a very erratic personality & those that knew her realized that she could be capable of saying I want to marry you & I want to murder you in the same breath. She often both spoke & wrote about the violence she wished to inflict on others.
Police tried to piece together the hours before Adrianne went missing & continued to speak with Sarah & Cory, knowing these were the last known people to see her. When police spoke with Sarah about her relationship with Adrianne, she replied, “To be honest, no, I don’t like her.” She explained their rocky relationship & the officer tried to understand why she would give her a ride. She explained that she invited her to lunch so they could discuss their issues. She, Adrianne, Cory & a friend named Scott McKittrick got into Sarah’s car & after, she said she had just dropped her off at McDonald’s. When police spoke with Cory, he told the exact story but added one detail, saying that Adrianne & Sarah had argued during their trip. From there, he said they’d dropped her off at McDonald’s & quickly ended the call with police.
When police spoke to Sarah again, she admitted to leaving that detail out of the story, saying she feared it would make them look bad. When pressed for additional details, Sarah claimed they argued over notes that Adrianne had passed to Cory which confessed that she liked him & wanted to hang out with him without Sarah. According to Sarah, this was something that both she & Cory did not want to happen. After continued questioning, Sarah admitted that the verbal argument turned physical & a few punches were exchanged until they came to a resolution that Adrianne would stay away from both her & Cory. She said then they left & she dropped her off at McDonald’s.
Meanwhile, the weekend went by & there was no sign of Adrianne. On Sarah’s next questioning, she arrived at the station with her mom & a lawyer & repeated her version of events. Police suspected she knew far more but let her go as there was not enough evidence to hold her at that point. On Tuesday, January 25, Cory came in with his lawyer for questioning & repeated his story. Based on his body language, police felt that if anyone was going to crack, it was going to be Cory.
Only hours later, Cory’s dad Bert called police & said they were coming back to the station. This time, Cory began crying as his parents tried to understand what happened, he broke down & repeated, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” Bert asked Corey if something happened in the car & he nodded his head yes. Bert asked if she’d gotten hurt in the car & he nodded yes & when he asked if she got hurt bad, he said, “really, really a lot.” When Bert asked if she was dead, he shook his head yes. When he asked where she was, he couldn’t talk. Bert called his ex-wife Teresa & told her to come over right away. When she arrived, she could only cry & hug her son as he again repeated, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Through the shaking & crying, Bert could also see relief in his son that he was no longer holding in what happened.
Cory told police that he wasn’t even really thinking about himself & instead, worrying about losing Sarah. At this point, he began to tell police what happened the day that Adrianne disappeared. On Friday, January 21, 2005 at noon, Sarah invited Adrianne to lunch at Taco Bell. The group of four pulled away from the school in Sarah’s red 4-door Geo Prizm. Sarah was driving & Adrianne was in the the passenger seat while Cory & their friend Scott were in the backseat. As they drove, Sarah verbally confronted Adrianne & basically demanded that she back off of her territory. The argument escalated as Adrianne argued back, indicating she was free to do what she liked.
As they pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot, the argument turned physical. At this point, Scott decided to leave, indicating he wanted no part in what was happening & exited the car. Cory said that Sarah grabbed a wooden stick that she keeps in her car for protection & hit her a couple of times. They continued to fight & wrestle & moved to the backseat. Cory said as the fight got more violent, he moved to the front passenger seat
Sarah was on top of Adrianne, choking her until she passed out. Sarah got out of the car & moved to the front seat & smoked a cigarette with Cory. Cory believed that Adrianne was passed out & said they were waiting for her to wake up. When they finally looked back, they saw that her face was blue & they began to panic, realizing that she was dead. This took place in the parking lot of Taco Bell in the midst of a busy afternoon but because it was a cold winter day, the windows were fogged up & outsiders had no idea what was happening inside the car.
When Cory told Sarah that she killed Adrianne, she continued to deny that she was dead. Finally, she said that she needed him to help her hide the body & he agreed. He said he didn’t consider calling anyone because he cared too much about Sarah & didn’t want to see her go to jail so he followed her instructions. They moved Adrianne’s body to the trunk & drove to Sarah’s grandparent’s farm where they wrapped her in a tarp & planned to bury her body until they realized the ground was frozen.
Cory indicated that they moved on to plan B & he poured gas on the tarp & used a butane lighter to set Adrianne’s body on fire. He said that he & Sarah stood away & Sarah cried on his shoulder as he comforted her. He said since they couldn’t bury her body, the only proper thing to do was cremate it. Police said they doubted this & indicated they were only trying to hide the evidence so they wouldn’t get caught. Cory said they felt bad at the time & felt this was the proper thing to do. Plan B wasn’t working & Adrianne’s body wasn’t turning to ash as they expected.
He said that Sarah said they had to get her body off that land & asked Cory to dismember her body. Cory refused but thought of a friend, 16-year-old Nate Gaudet who is “into blood & gore.” They said he was the type of kid who would go around killing animals, so Sarah called him., figuring he would help. The next day Sarah had to work a shift at the local movie theater & couldn’t go back to the scene of the crime until Sunday. On Saturday, they picked Nate up & spoke with him about the plan & he agreed to help & was told to bring a saw. The next day, they got Nate & as they drove, they tried to distract themselves & talked about music.
When they got to the farm, Nate dismembered Adrianne’s body as Sarah & Cory stood by, laughing over jokes. They dumped most of her remains in a ravine on the property & covered them with branches. Cory held open a trash bag as Nate placed her head & arms inside. They placed the bags in Sarah’s trunk & drove to McDonald’s to eat, Cory ordering a double cheeseburger. Police asked how they could possibly eat after doing something so gruesome & he said it was because they were high & had been smoking weed all day.
After their lunch date, they drove to a park called Black Hawk Historic Site & looked for a place to bury the bag that contained the head & arms, fearing that the remains could be identified as Adrianne’s. Cory said that Nate held the bag in one hand & concealed a shovel in the other, under his trench coat & ran through the woods. As they ventured on, they noticed a manhole & felt this would be a good place to dispose of the bag.
Cory agreed to take police to this location & at 11 pm, four days after Adrianne disappeared, Cory led police down a steep, icy path & under a pile of dirt, police found a manhole cover & several feet below, they located the bag. Police called Adrianne’s parents at 2 am & informed them that they were at their front door. Joanne said their stomachs dropped & Tony felt the world changed to slow-motion. He said it was the worst feeling he’s ever had.
The next morning, Cory took police to the farm where Adrianne’s body had been buried & her other remains hidden. It wasn’t until the next day that Adrianne’s family learned about the dismemberment; this was the same day that Adrianne & Cory were arrested on February 1, 2005. Tony said he’d never cried more in his life; learning his daughter had been murdered was horrific, but hearing what happened after was the hard part. He couldn’t fathom that someone could actually take a saw & cut another human into pieces, much less a sixteen-year-old. The medical examiner couldn’t conclusively determine the cause of death but findings were compatible with strangulation.
Cory’s parents were horrified & couldn’t wrap their heads around how he could have disconnected his feelings in order to do that, saying a gruesome act like this is not Cory at all. She feels that if anyone says something like this could never ever happen to their son, they’re fooling themselves because no one is exempt from this kind of horror since teenagers are at a place where they’re trying to find themselves in life.
Police went back to the story of how Cory said that Adrianne was murdered; he said as Sarah choked her, he sat up front, smoking & looking out the window. Adrianne’s father doesn’t believe this for a second, feeling that Sarah couldn’t have done it by herself.
On October 31, 2005, Sarah went to trial after pleading not guilty & Adrianne’s parents were there everyday, trying to see an ounce of remorse for what she’d done. Joann said she had a permanent smirk on her face as if to say, “Here I am!” Tony said she never once made eye contact with them. Sarah took the stand in her own defense & only admitted that she pulled Adrianne’s hair; she said that Cory had been the one who snapped & began attacking Adrienne without warning. Out of nowhere, he said, “She’s not one of us, Sarah” and began to choke her with his belt around her neck. She said that he threatened to kill Sarah, her family & even her cats if she didn’t help with the concealment. Cory testified that Sarah strangled Adrianne with the belt but admitted he held her down. It’s believed that Sarah was the leader & she was motivated by jealousy & Cory was motivated by his love for Sarah. More than 50 witnesses were called to the stand, one a bystander from the parking lot of the Taco Bell who noticed the red Geo Prizm bouncing up & down, back & forth. He was unable to see inside the car due to the fogged windows & wrote the scene off to teenage shenanigans.
On November 15, 2005, after 15 hours of deliberation, Sarah’s trial resulted in a hung jury since one of twelve jurors thought she was innocent but during her retrial in February of 2006, she was convicted of murder & concealing a homicide & was sentenced to fifty-three years in prison; 48 for murder & 5 for concealing a homicide.
Nate Gaudet pleaded guilty to concealing a homicide & he casually told the jury about his role & said he was just there to help some friends. He was charged as a juvenile & was sentenced to up to five years; he was released on November 11, 2008 at age twenty. Three years later, at age 23 on April 16, 2012, Nate was in the car with two other men when their car struck a tree in Indiana; they were all found burned beyond recognition.
Cory pleaded guilty to murder & concealment & received a forty-five year sentence. He apologized to Adrianne’s family during the trial though maintained that he did not kill her, admitting only to holding the belt that Sarah placed around her neck after she was dead, saying, “It wasn’t really tight, I was just holding it in my hand. I thought she was dead, so it didn’t really make a difference in my mind.” He said he was so used to doing whatever Sarah wanted & he wanted to help his friend.
In 2012 the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that imposing a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole on a juvenile offender is unconstitutional & sentencing over 40 years for juveniles is considered a life sentence.
In 2020, a judge denied Sarah’s petition for a new sentence hearing. Cory Gregory now identifies as female & goes by the name Harli Quinn & filed an appeal for a reduced sentence in 2022 but the original sentence was upheld & her projected parole date is July 26, 2047.
According to the Illinois Department of Corrections website, Sarah’s projected parole date is July 18, 2053.
Despite the sentencing, Tony knows that his daughter will never be coming home. He said he runs often & he thinks of Adrianne every step of the way. Tony & Joann know that they can never bring Adrianne back & they can’t lessen the sentence that Sarah & Cory gave her; they feel the two deserve each & every day they serve in prison.
References:
Crime and Coffee Couple 
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