A Midwestern Kid Aspires to International Terrorism
(“The Root of All Evil,” Forensic Files)
Just a quick update this week, with a bizarre side note to the post about Fred Grabbe — whose cruelty and habit of killing those who offended him were even more profound than Forensic Files depicted in “The Root of All Evil.”
But Grabbe, a hulking Illinois soybean farmer now in prison for strangling his petite wife, committed crimes that were strictly local in scope.
His grandson Adam Livvix attempted to stage an international terrorist attack.
Gridiron guy. Adam is the son of Jennie Grabbe Woolverton — Fred and the late Charlotte Grabbe’s surviving child — and he seemed like a promising kid in the beginning.
A product of a Jennie’s marriage to the much older Everett Darrell Livvix, Adam was born on April 20, 1984, and played football and had a good reputation at Marshall High School, graduating in 2003, according to Tribune Star coverage. He was reportedly one of the cool kids.
By the time his dad died in 2005, however, Adam had acquired numerous legal woes, including traffic offenses, minor charges related to marijuana, and theft.
No ‘metal’ of honor. At some point, Adam (full name Everett Adam Livvix) borrowed equipment and a sum of $48,041.93 from Custom Films Inc., his father’s plastics company. His dad’s will stipulated that Adam reimburse the estate before he could claim real estate inheritances, the Tribune Star reported.
Although it couldn’t be confirmed, one source reported that Adam ended up receiving no money or property at all from his late father’s estate.
Adam tried to earn himself a windfall in other ways. In 2008, he and younger brother Tyler were accused of stealing aluminum siding and other metals from a business they had connections to, but a judge dismissed the charges, which the Livvixes blamed on a misunderstanding, the Journal Gazette of Mattoon, Illinois, reported.
Startup ambitions. In 2013, Adam skipped a court date related to his alleged theft of a bush mower, according to an AP account. It’s not clear whether he served time related to that offense.
But the persevering Adam — who inherited his father’s entrepreneurial spirit if not his tangible assets — started a number of businesses.
Unfortunately, what they mostly earned for him was trouble. He reportedly was accused of misusing an SBA loan.
Plenty o’ shekels. For his next act, Adam, who began claiming he was Jewish, traveled to Israel as a tourist in 2013 and hooked up with a group of Americans living there.
The beefy 6-foot-tall American opened a power-washing business in Jerusalem, but he also told acquaintances that he had made a lot of money after selling a cancer drug or that he had a rich uncle, according to the LA Weekly.
Whatever the case, Adam somehow acquired a stockpile of cash that funded outings with his new buddies, the LA Weekly reported.
Seal of approval. He ended up sharing an apartment with Kevin Orenshein, 21, an American enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces.
Adam told his new friends that he was a Navy Seal. He had a convincing-looking frogman tattoo, a symbol of the Seals, on his back, according to the LA Weekly.
Saying that he needed to protect his business after some Arabs had thrown rocks, Adam asked Kevin to provide him with some weapons used by the Israeli army.
Intercepted. Kevin believed Adam’s story and sold him $125 worth of explosives, including stun and smoke grenades, explosive bricks, and tear gas canisters.
In reality, Adam had adopted Islamaphobic and anti-Arab sentiments and was planning an act of terror.
Fortunately, Israeli law enforcement, which has a knack for smoking out troublemakers before they have a chance to strike, zeroed in on Adam.
He’s courted. Although Adam had lied about being a Seal, when officers came to arrest him, he did manage a rather cinematic — albeit failed — escape attempt. He jumped to the patio of an apartment a floor below his own, the Jerusalem Post reposted.
In 2014, Adam, then 30, was indicted for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks against Muslim holy sites, most prominently the Dome of the Rock mosque, the 1,300-year-old gold-topped shrine in Jerusalem.
His lawyer, Gal Wolf, called the charges “nonsense,” although Adam admitted to police that he made some early-stage preparations for an attack.
You’re not our problem anymore. The Israeli government also accused Adam of overstaying his visa by a year.
An Israeli court deemed Adam Livvix unfit to stand trial because of psychosis and kept him in a mental health facility. Israel eventually decided “not our circus, not our monkeys” — and sent him back to Illinois.
There, Adam faced charges for the theft of farm equipment, the LA Weekly reported.
Runs in the family. Incidentally, it’s not entirely clear to which, if any, religious group Adam belonged. He has no discernable Jewish heritage. A Palestinian news source described him as an “extremist Christian.” His mother belonged to a Methodist church.
Adam dropped off the radar screen after 2015, but his little brother picked up the torch.
Charles Tyler Livvix, known as Tyler, faced arrest after missing a court date in August 2019, according to the Robinson (Illinois) Daily News.
Back on the street. Tyler barricaded himself inside a house in Marshall, and it took local police, the sheriff’s office, state police, and an ILIAS Tactical Response Team to extricate him, the Tribune Star reported.
The Tribune Star story noted that officers “were aware of Livvix’s relation to Everett Adam Livvix.” But it didn’t mention Adam’s whereabouts at the time.
It’s not clear why Tyler Livvix had the court date in the first place, but he is free today and maintains a presence on social media with somewhat confusing posts about politics and current events.
Race relations. Meanwhile, Tyler and Adam’s half-sister — born in 1961 to Darrell Livvix and then-wife Cynthia — has a moderately high profile but not because of any legal trouble.
A story in the Jerusalem Post notes that she’s “Laura George, who is married to Tony George, the former president and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the founder of the Indy Racing League.”
As for Adam Livvix’s onetime associate Kevin Orenshein, he works as a technology analyst for an Israeli venture capital firm, according to his LinkedIn profile.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
