Family still seeking answers in 1979 cold case murder at Torrey Pines State Beach

The family of a North County teenager whose body was found beaten to death in Del Mar has been waiting more than four decades for answers.

“I believe somebody knows what happened,” said Terri Ashley-MacQuarrie, 46 years after her brother’s bloody body was found near the shore at Torrey Pines State Beach.

Adam Ashley had been beaten to death, according to the Medical Examiner’s report, but the killer or killers have never been identified, much less arrested.

“This has had a devastating impact on my family,” said MacQuarrie, who is working to heat up her little brother’s cold case. “It's been incredibly frustrating over the years."

She added that she’s been calling and emailing San Diego police for decades to get closure for her brother.

Adam loved the beach. He’d gone for a swim on May 16, 1979. The next morning, his body was discovered by a passerby. The Medical Examiner’s report cited numerous injuries, mostly to Adam's head. Blood was found nearby, along with bloodied rocks and other forensic evidence, but in 1979, DNA wasn’t in use for solving crimes.

Now, solving crimes with DNA evidence is commonplace. But MacQuarrie told NBC 7 the DNA found at her brother’s crime scene hasn’t been useful. She met with cold case detectives in 2002 and was told the bad news.

“That even though there had been a lot of advances in technology that the DNA that they do have is not useable. That the only way to solve this case would be an old-fashioned detective work," she said.

MacQuarrie said there have been times when she questioned how thorough the police investigation was. She recalled two high-profile murders of young women along the same stretch of beach within a few years of Adam’s murder. Adam’s case, she said, did not get the same kind of attention.

“It didn’t seem as urgent,” MacQuarrie said. “It was dismissed, you know, just a troubled kid, you know, a bad kid.”

Adam was described as a good-natured person who knew how to relate to other people. He had a good sense of humor. His sister said he was athletic and musical, but he was also troubled.

Adam began to get in trouble at school, and his mother — a widow raising three children alone — struggled to keep him in line. A counselor suggested Adam spend some time with a male adult authority figure, so he was sent to a foster home in Del Mar. MacQuarrie told NBC 7 the man who ran that foster home took in several boys. She wonders whether her brother had a disagreement with one of them that may have led to his death. 

“Somebody got mad,” she surmised. Either that or her brother’s death was random. She still doesn’t know.

The San Diego Police Department’s Cold Case squad didn’t add Adam’s case to its website until recently after a newspaper article came out about his death.

“I’m trying to be positive. I’m trying to be understanding and accept that the police department has such limited resources,” MacQuarrie said.

NBC 7 reached out to the Cold Case team. Sgt. Joel Tien said he’s very familiar with Adam’s case. He said “extensive forensic work” has been done on the case over the past five years, but that work was a dead end.  Tien said the team is open to any tips, no matter how insignificant, because it might give detectives what they need to solve the case.

“Somebody knows something,” MacQuarrie said.

She hopes that someone will step forward and help police resolve her brother’s case.

If you have information, please contact SDPD's Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293  If you’d like to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.