My evil ex husband smothered our 2 kids in their beds in sick revenge plot…how my friends found them was disturbing

FOR their first Christmas together, Mary Nielsen’s boyfriend handed her a gift-wrapped box. “Wow. A Pandora charm bracelet!” she gasped as she opened it, surprised at his generosity. Mary pictured with her children, Emi and Teddy Credit: Supplied Adam Price carried out the worst possible crime imaginable Credit: Unknown Mary, now 35, had only been with Adam Price a few months, but thought that he must really love her. She was a 21-year-old nurses aide when she met Adam, a graphic designer with piercing blue eyes and six years her senior. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! “I was outgoing, he was awkward and quiet but attentive and generous,” she recalled. After that Christmas, Mary, from Illinois, USA, was convinced they would one day marry. Mary was 21 when she first met Adam. She thought he was generous kind and loving Credit: Supplied Mary’s children were the most precious part of her life Credit: Supplied However, as time passed, she started to notice he wasn’t always the loving boyfriend. Sometimes he’d say or do something affectionate, but his eyes looked empty. But desperately in love, Mary put her concerns to one side and within a couple of years fell pregnant with his child. “Can you get rid of it?” Adam asked bluntly, to which Mary answered “no”. But Adam was not happy with the decision, punishing Mary by giving a week of silent treatment and cancelling her mobile phone. Most read in The Sun “Now I knew that emptiness I’d seen in his eyes was real,” she said. “But we’d just moved hundreds of miles away from family support. I felt vulnerable and was more scared of being a single mum than being with aheartless man.” During her pregnancy, Mary developed pre-eclampsia, a serious and potentially life-threatening medical condition, and at 36 weeks she was told she must deliver the baby then and there. “When I called Adam at work, he said he had stuff to finish up,” she recalled. Mary pictured with her eldest daughter Credit: Supplied Emi and Teddy were 5 and 3 when they died Credit: Supplied When he did finally turn up, he complained that he was hungry, tired and missing work to be there. Surprisingly, back home with their little girl Emi, Adam was helpful. Mary hoped that becoming a dad would be the making of Adam. But she was very wrong. Emi was almost three months old when Mary’s mum, Brandi, and dad Jeff, came to stay for Easter. Meanwhile, Adam disappeared for the weekend leaving her without access to a bank account or groceries. “I don’t like the way he treats you,” Mary’s dad said, pleading with her to stay. That October, the two married, despite disapproval from Mary’s family. Emi was almost 18 months when she fell pregnant again. During an argument Adam pushed Mary down the stairs. He apologised and admitted he needed anger management. Things escalated after her second child Teddy was born in March 2018. Adam was constantly losing his temper and then he lost his job which made him even more angry. Adam did “nothing to help” when the children were born Credit: Supplied Mary moved 360 miles away with the children to start a new life Credit: Supplied Despite having just given birth, Mary went back to work as a nurse’s aide for a few months while Adam did “nothing to help, even though I was doing overnights and 60- hour weeks.” It got so bad that Mary eventually asked Adam for a divorce. She moved into her own place with the children and arranged for Adam to look after the kids at weekends, but every time they came back dirty with matted hair. “He began complimenting me, telling me how pretty I looked and asked if we could be friend’s with benefits?’ Mary says. The following year, Mary decided to move 360 miles to be closer to her family, even though she knew it would make exchanging the kids even more difficult. Adam had dragged his heels over the divorce but finally filed in February 2021 once he realised Mary would never go back. “To punish me, he argued for more custody,” she said. “I told the divorce judge Adam was an unfit father, but he ruled week-on week-off. Everything seemed fine when Mary video called the kids in the lead up to their death Credit: Supplied Sadly, Emi and Teddy were found dead in 2021 Credit: Supplied “The kids began returning with bruises they wouldn’t talk about and Adam couldn’t explain.” Then Teddy started saying: “I don’t like my daddy” and Emi said: “Daddy doesn’t bath us.” Concerned Mary approached the courts to see if she could return to her original custody agreement but no action was taken. On the 10th of May 2021 , Adam took the kids for the weekend and Mary promised to video call them. That was the last time she saw them alive. On Friday, she called around 6:30pm to check on them but got no answer. She assumed they must be having an early night but started to grow concerned when she got no response on Saturday too. Mary called the police who went to the house and reported back that everything was dark and that nobody had answered the door. They said they weren’t concerned as the bins had been put out neatly for collection. On Sunday, fearing the worst, she asked her friends Morgan and Kashe, who lived near my old home if they could go to the house. When they got there, they rang to say the door was unlocked and Mary instructed them to go inside. Morgan and Kashe tried calling their names at first. “Emi’s in her bed,” Morgan said suddenly. “Is she okay?” I asked. “I’ll call you back,” Morgan replied, hanging up. The friends found the two children tucked up in bed with their favourite toys. Terrified, Mary called her mum and they started driving back to the old house. She tried calling Morgan but there was no answer. Ninety minutes into the drive a detective called. “What happened to my babies?” Mary sobbed. “I’m sorry but the children are deceased,” he replied. When Mary and her mother reached the house there were police everywhere. “A detective told me Adam had smothered the children,” she says. “Emi was in her bed cuddling a stuffed giraffe while Teddy was hugging his teddy bear.” Later that Sunday police found and arrested Adam. “I cried solidly for four days and saw my babies at their viewing on the fifth,” Mary recalled. Mourners at the funeral wore blue for Teddy and purple for Emi, their favourite colours. The kids were cremated and she had some of their ashes turned into jewellery, including charms for a necklace. Teddy’s was a little hammer as he had loved his little toy tool set. Emi’s was a butterfly because she loved them. “I was too grief-stricken to work for a year then studied to be a hairdresser,” Mary said. After three years Adam faced court. Smiling and whispering to his lawyers, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Giving evidence detectives said they’d discovered large collages of the kid’s drawings and family photos on walls throughout the house. “My ex had been obsessed with the family he never wanted,” Mary said. After murdering the children and fleeing, he’d visited a priest and asked, “Are any sins so grave they can’t be forgiven?” He told the priest he’d hurt someone. On the Sunday, the day the kids’ bodies had been found, he told another priest he’d killed his children and let him call the police. Despite this, Adam, 38, pled not guilty to murder, claiming he’d just driven off and left the children because he was distraught over our divorce. “It was nonsense. He killed them to spite me,” Mary said. “I cried tears of joy as he was found guilty of first-degree murder and jailed for life. “I miss the sound of Emi and Teddy’s little voices. Nobody calls me mummy now,” she said. Mary told the divorce judge Adam was an unfit father and was ignored. “No woman wants to cut a good dad out her child’s life,” she said. “For rejecting him, Adam tried to destroy me. “I wish I’d trusted my instincts when I saw the emptiness in his eyes, but I was young, I thought I was in love. “He’d love-bombed me and was attentive and generous before revealing his true self. That’s how men like him operate. Adam’s a psychopath. “What else can explain a man calmly putting the bins out while planning the murder of his children? “He’s rotting in solitary now. I live for the day he’s transferred to general population. “Then, I hope, he’ll discover what other inmates think of men who murder children.” Comment now