After becoming caught up in a street fight between a couple, an actor was shot and killed. In Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday morning, Adam Turck, 35, was out walking his dog when he noticed the 19-year-old male fighting with his girlfriend.
Before the teenager pulled a gun from his rucksack and started shooting, the theater star attempted to break up the couple. After hitting Turck, the gunman turned the weapon on himself. Around 10:17 a.m., Turck and the teenager were discovered critically injured in the city’s historic Church Hill neighborhood, according to the police.
Despite his deadly injuries, the actor was kept alive in order to donate his organs. His family made the heartbreaking comment, “We hope that those lives he saves will know that they will hold the soul of a hero within them.”
Turck is remembered as a fitness enthusiast and a mainstay of the neighborhood theater scene who had a profound effect on everyone he came into contact with. Although they were devastated by his passing, friends acknowledged that they were not shocked that he risked his life to save others.
After they costarred in a children’s play together, Ruth Hedburg first met Turck in 2015 and claimed that he made everyone he interacted with feel like “the most important person in his life.” When asked about his passing, she replied, “The result is awful, but I also know that Adam would get up out of his ICU bed, given a moment’s notice, and do the exact same thing again.”
⚠️ WARNING: This post contains graphic descriptions of a fatality.
Adam Turck, 35, a well-known local actor in Richmond, Virginia, was fatally shot while trying to intervene in a domestic dispute on Saturday, August 2. The alleged attacker, a 19-year-old man, then turned the gun… pic.twitter.com/0KyEy2G75M
— True Crime Updates (@TrueCrimeUpdat) August 6, 2025
“That’s something that’s going to have a big effect on a lot of people going forward,” she said to WRIC, an ABC station.
A few months prior to his passing, Turck had starred in Smoke: A Comedy of Horrors, and he was scheduled to appear in Dracula: A Comedy of Horrors in the fall. According to his family, he was “fiercely devoted to his craft, his loved ones, and finding joy in any corner.”
“On August 2, 2025, Adam put his life on the line to protect someone in need and we will forever remember him for this sacrifice,” they stated. The woman “would not be with us today” if the actor hadn’t stepped in, according to the family.
Actor shot and killed after intervening in domestic dispute while walking his dog https://t.co/fzuQiIPmDN pic.twitter.com/uc0Yka6Kmp
— The Independent (@Independent) August 6, 2025
Turck used to be a trainer at Tequila and Deadlifts, his home gym, where he frequently worked out while he wasn’t performing. He posted about forthcoming gigs and his fitness progress on his Instagram account. His passing has left a void “not just in our gym community or our theater communities, but in the fabric of this world,” Kerish Raie, the gym’s owner, told NBC station WWBT.
He is the type of person that authors write about in their works because they aspire to be as good as he was. “And without him, this world is a duller, darker place.” The actor was remembered by the Virginia Repertory Theatre as a “passionate activist and beloved member of our community.”
