This morning, Adam Mitchell Soules was found guilty as charged with Premeditated First Degree Murder, for the January 20, 2019 stabbing death of a man on Fort Myers Beach. The jury returned the guilty verdict after deliberating for just under a half hour, following a four-day trial in Lee County.
The Honorable Judge Margaret O. Steinbeck adjudicated the defendant guilty and remanded him into custody without bond. He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 20, 2023 and faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Richard Montecalvo, Assistant State Attorney Sara Miller of the Homicide Unit, and Assistant State Attorney Erin Hughes of the Special Victims Unit, prosecuted the case.
Soules, a 40-year-old transient, was indicted by the Lee County Grand Jury on February 5, 2019, on one count of Premeditated First Degree Murder.
The Sunday morning of the murder, at 9 a.m., the victim was unlocking and opening the doors of the Fort Myers Beach Library, to get ready for a book sale. The defendant, who was walking by the library at the time, turned back, and pulled out a machete he had concealed in his clothing. He then approached the victim, attempting to stab him in the face and upper body. The victim tried defending himself from the attack by raising his arms, so the defendant stabbed the victim in the lower torso, which was the fatal wound. The victim died in the library lobby.
Soules then fled, running down Estero Boulevard, towards a home, then stopped on the landing of the home. He then went to the back of an abandoned supermarket and onto the rooftop to hide. One of the witnesses to the attack, followed the defendant in his pick-up truck, letting Lee County Sheriff’s Deputies know where he was. He was then taken into custody.
During an interview with detectives, just about two hours after the crime, which was played during the trial, the defendant admitted stabbing and killing the victim and said it was because he did not like him. He also admitted he had been thinking about killing the victim prior to that day.
Samantha Syoen – Communications Director, State Attorney’s Office