Moments before Jason Hadeed was killed, his neighbors in an upper-middle-class Rockville subdivision said they could hear the 33-year-old athletic trainer pleading for his life.
They next heard two gunshots and a voice yell for help.
Joseph Labosco, 28, said moments later, he saw a man pacing outside, pistol in hand, on King Farm Boulevard. Labosco lives in a corner apartment of a nearby building with a bird’s-eye view of the Friday night homicide.
Police have charged Michael Wayne Adams, 44, with Hadeed’s slaying. Though officials aren’t releasing details about the relationship between the two men who lived in the same upscale development, neighbors are speculating.
Labosco and others called police and could see Hadeed on the sidewalk about 100 feet from Adams’ house, the hood of the local celebrity trainer’s sweatshirt pulled over his head and the light from a nearby lamppost illuminating his dead body.
Adams, neighbors say, re-entered his own home nearby, flipped off the lights and lurched out of the garage in a dark SUV with the headlights off, heading away from the scene. Hours later, Adams re-emerged in Virginia, where he turned himself in to Fairfax County Police. He is awaiting extradition.
Neighbors say Adams is single, is often seen walking a mixed-breed black dog and keeps well-organized athletic equipment in his garage, which could explain a link between Hadeed and him.
Hadeed ran Elite Athlete Training Systems Inc. using space in Gaithersburg’s Philbin’s Family Fitness & Athletic Training Center, owned by his longtime mentor, John Philbin. For years, Philbin kept Hadeed under his wing, helping him get a foot in the door with the Redskins and the Ravens, and had him asan assistant as Philbin trained the U.S. bobsled team.
But for many, it’s Hadeed’s close work with area high school football players that will leave the biggest impression.
“He was tough, but they always knew he cared. He was a father, a mentor and will be missed,” Philbin said.
Police say they’re trying to determine a motive, but many in the neighborhood believe money was involved.
