EILEEN ADAMS - 14 yo - (1967) Toledo OH

Suspect in 1967 killing denies snatching Ohio girl
Posted 10/26/2011 2:50 PM ET

By John Seewer, Associated Press
TOLEDO, Ohio — A man accused of snatching a 14-year-old Ohio schoolgirl in 1967 and dumping her body in Michigan testified Wednesday there was no way he would have held her captive in his basement, accusing detectives and his ex-wife of making up evidence about him.
Robert Bowman, who's now 75, said Margaret Bowman was lying when she told jurors she found the girl alive in their basement fruit cellar with her arms outstretched and bound, tape covering her mouth.

She also said Robert Bowman made her go with him when he dumped the body, which was found tied up and wrapped in a rug a month later in a field.

"No, I did not," he said. "That isn't something I would do."

Robert Bowman has pleaded not guilty to murder in the death of Eileen Adams, a Toledo high school freshman who vanished on her way home from school.

Jurors in August couldn't reach a unanimous verdict in the case, forcing a retrial that is now coming to a close. In a surprise move, Robert Bowman took the stand on Tuesday after not testifying at his first trial.

Detectives tried to connect Bowman to the slaying in the early 1980s after his former wife described a nigxmlarish scene of finding Eileen in the basement of their new home 14 years earlier. But her story wasn't enough to bring charges until a cold case squad reopened the investigation five years ago. New DNA evidence connected Bowman with the killing, prosecutors said, and police arrested him near Palm Springs, Calif., in 2008.

Bowman on Wednesday called his ex-wife a perpetual liar.

"I didn't hear her say anything that was truthful," he said.

Bowman faces up to life in prison if he's convicted. Closing arguments are expected Thursday.

His attorneys tried to convince jurors that it wouldn't have been possible for Bowman to sneak the girl into the house. Bowman said he always worked late at the construction company he owned and that his wife was always home because she just had a baby.

Prosecutors earlier told jurors that DNA evidence from semen on the victim's thermal underwear found that there was a one in 4 million chance that the stain came from someone other than Bowman.

Bowman said he couldn't explain how his semen could have gotten on the girl's clothes.

"Anything's possible," he responded.

He said all he knew about the girl is what he heard from detectives and from what came out in court. He also said he remembers challenging detectives who tried to get him to admit involvement in the killing, telling them "you figure it out."

Bowman accused detectives of manufacturing evidence against him and called two former investigators snakes.

His testimony became bizarre as he talked about his belief that life is continuous and how he had met people in different lives.

Bowman had been a successful businessman before disappearing in the 1980s into a life on the streets in Florida and California.

He had owned a business that made high-end purses in Florida and sold them in Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue stores. But when police detectives tracked him down in Florida in 1982, he was living in an abandoned restaurant, wearing a tattered shirt and jeans and a scruffy beard.

Hanging from the restaurant ceiling were three dolls, some with their feet bound with string. A nail had been driven into the head of two dolls — eerily similar to how a hunter had found Eileen's body.

Bowman spoke on Wednesday about how he would sit down to dinner with rats and feed them inside the restaurant near Miami.

"I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed dogs, cats and squirrels," said Bowman, who had to be admonished by the judge and his own attorney several times and reminded not to ramble and to answer questions directly.

http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=cincinnati&sParam=37783325.story

Sentenced to life 43 years on: The 75 year-old who tied up and murdered schoolgirl, 14, in his basement
Eileen Adams was hogtied with cords when found dead
She had a nail in her head and had been strangled
A cold-case squad linked DNA to Bowman in 2008
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 4:36 PM on 30th October 2011

A man accused of tying up a 14-year-old schoolgirl in his Ohio basement in 1967 before killing her and dumping her body was convicted Friday of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Robert Bowman, 75, took the witness stand before his sentencing to deny involvement in the killing after hearing the victim's sister describe how Eileen Adams' death tore her family apart.
'I recognize the pain and suffering I've just heard,' Bowman said, according to the Associated Press, but 'I'm not responsible for that,' he added. 'I feel no remorse.'

Among new DNA evidence used against him, the trial featured interrogation tapes of Bowman neither denying his involvement in the girl's death or admitting to it.
He promises to not make prosecution too easy for them.
'All this is just a waste of time. What you want me to do is to confess to something like that which you're not going to get. I'm not going to say anything that can be held against me. I'm just not going to make it that easy for you,' Bowman told prosecutors on the tapes, according to WTOL-TV.
Dolls also found in his possession in the 80s featuring nails in the back of their heads, similar to how Eileen's body was found, were also presented.

Bowman claimed they were there only to play with prosecutors.
When Eileen's body was found it was rapped in a rug and left in a southern Michigan field after being sexually assaulted, tied up and a nail driven through the back of her head.
Her sister, Maggie Kirschman, who was eight when her sister disappeared a week before Christmas on her way home from school, said there was 'no forgetting' for her or their six other siblings.
Two of them, along with their parents, died in recent years, missing the final sentencing.

After hearing previous testimony by Bowman's ex-wife against him, describing the girl found tied up 'hanging like Jesus' in their basement, Ms Kirschman said her family felt hopeless, with the jury not finding enough evidence for his conviction.
'It was as if there was nothing we could do. It made us all sick,' she said.
After stumping prosecutors with a lack of hard evidence, the case against Bowman was dismissed before a cold-case squad linked new DNA evidence to Bowman in 2008.
He was charged in the killing, however was unable to be located or known if still alive.

He was profiled on 'America's Most Wanted' and police in California arrested him after he was spotted riding a bicycle.
His attorney said he had been living in the desert under a tarp.
During the earlier August trial, Margaret Bowman, one of the key witnesses against her ex-husband, offered a chilling account of discovering the girl after hearing what she thought were rats in the cellar.
She told jurors she opened a wooden door and was stunned to find a naked young girl tied-up and 'hanging like Jesus'. Her arms were outstretched and she had tape covering her mouth.
Mrs Bowman said she knew the girl was alive because: 'I looked in her eyes.'

'I was horrified, I was screaming, I was shaking,' she added. 'I didn't know what to think.'
She said she ran upstairs and that her husband confronted her, saying that she was getting into his business and that he now had to kill the girl.
He also threatened to kill his wife and their newborn daughter if she told anyone, she said.
Mrs Bowman said she never went in the basement again. 'That was enough,' she said.
That same night, she testified, Bowman made her go with him as he dumped the body just north of Toledo, across the state line in Michigan.
The defense had previously questioned the credibility of her testimony and why she waited so long to contact authorities.

Mrs Bowman said that at some point she discovered school books on a table in the kitchen. She opened one of the books and saw the name Eileen Adams written inside.
The couple moved several times, including to Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami. Ms Bowman said she didn't go to police until 1981, after she had saved enough money to leave her husband and return to Toledo.
That was the first time anyone connected Bowman to the killing.
Detectives tracked Bowman down to Miami, Florida in 1982. Once a successful businessman who sold high-end handbags in Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue stores, he was living in an abandoned restaurant near Miami, wearing a tattered shirt, jeans and a scruffy beard.
Bowman's attorney said he had become involved in an offbeat religion and given up all of his material things.
Three more decades passed until cold-case detectives took DNA samples from Bowman's ex-wife and their daughter and compared them with DNA found on Adams' clothing.
Bowman said that he intends to appeal Friday's conviction.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055070/Robert-Bowman-sentenced-life-1967-murder-Eileen-Adams-14.html#ixzz1cedcP9nP