A ll eyes in the funeral home were watching as Teresa Chrismer Lynch was handed the urn containing her son’s remains Saturday in Fort Oglethorpe.
“I’m taking him home,” she said, holding the urn high in the air.
Eyes closed, tears flowing, Lynch began singing Adam Chrismer’s favorite song, “Angel from Montgomery,” as family and friends gathered for Adam’s memorial service.
She had waited eight years for that moment, ever since she had learned that her 17-year-old son was dead, his head and hands found in Boone Lake near Johnson City, Tenn.
Adam Chrismer and his 16-year-old bride, Samantha Leming, were killed in 2002 and their bodies stuffed in a Johnson city warehouse.
Samantha’s body was returned shortly. Investigators kept Adam’s remains as evidence against Howard Hawk Willis, who had befriended the teenagers months before and whom police believed was the killer.
During years of delay in the trial, “I was afraid to leave the house,” Lynch said. “Afraid there would be a motion or a court date. I couldn’t trust anything that was happening.”
Lynch testified against Willis. Four months after a Johnson City jury convicted Willis of murder and handed down three death sentences, Lynch received her son’s cremated remains.
The memorial service drew a crowd, including Adam’s friends from Ridgeland High School.
Sharon Gladden said her son, Jonathan, was a schoolmate who would “never forget Adam.”
“Jonathan has a speech impediment, and Adam was one of the only people that didn’t tease him,” Gladden said.
The family considers Adam Chrismer a hero, said Lynch’s cousin, Sybil Jones.
Because of his death, Willis was convicted of murder and won’t be able to kill anyone else, she said. Police suspected Willis killed his wife in 1987 and his stepfather earlier in 2002, but he never was charged in either death, records show.
“[Teresa] told me, ‘I forgive [Willis], that’s what Adam would have wanted,'” Jones said.
After the service Saturday at a Fort Oglethorpe funeral home, Adam Chrismer’s urn was placed on a table outside his mother and stepfather’s home in Cloudland, Ga., as the family gathered to celebrate his life.
“It’s going to be OK,” Lynch said. “I feel like there’s a new day and it’s coming. I’ve got Adam home.”