On the morning of August 2, 2025, Richmond lost one of its brightest stage lights. Adam Turck, 35, was shot while walking his dog along East Grace Street after stepping between a 19-year-old man and the woman he was assaulting. The teen turned the gun on Turck and then on himself; both were rushed to the hospital, where Turck succumbed to his wounds.
Chief Rick Edwards called it “a tragic story of gun violence” against a Good Samaritan. Turck’s family confirmed he will be an organ donor, writing: “Heroes save others—Adam will keep doing that even now.”
On Richmond stages, Turck earned a 2018 Best Actor award for Hand to God and had just closed Smoke; he was set to star in Dracula: A Comedy of Horrors this fall. Offstage, he trained clients at Tequila and Deadlifts, arriving every day with his rescue dog, Lana, and a grin the whole gym could hear.
Tributes pour in from Virginia Repertory Theatre—“a light both onstage and off”—and gym owner Kerith Rae: “The world is duller without him.” A GoFundMe, organized by his “platonic soulmate” Chelsea Burke, will help her relocate and then fund causes Adam championed.
Friends remember a man whose “moral compass was steel” and whose instinct, even in his last moments, was to stand between danger and the innocent.