Man charged in '79 slaying of boy
- From: indigoace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Indigo Ace)
- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:16:14 GMT
From the Chicago Tribune--
Man charged in '79 slaying of boy
By Azam Ahmed | Tribune staff reporter
December 19, 2007
Even back in 1979, Gary police officers who first worked Kenneth
"Butch" Conrick's slaying suspected they knew who was responsible for
the horrific killing and torture of the 8-year-old boy.
But before the days of DNA testing, the evidence wasn't strong enough
to charge David Bowen, 16 at the time of the slaying. And so for the
next 28 years, the image of the boy's mutilated body, naked and tied
to a tree, haunted the officers.
That ended Tuesday, when Bowen, now 44 and living in Maine, was
arrested largely on the strength of DNA evidence officials say links
him to the boy's killing. He is charged with murder.
"This was a case in which we needed the modern technology to help us
prove what we believed," Lake County, Ind., Sheriff Rogelio Dominguez
said at a news conference Tuesday to announce the arrest. "I hope
[Kenneth] knows that we never gave up on him."
The case was reopened in December 2005 when one of the original
investigators, then-Gary Police Sgt. John Lashenik, brought it to the
attention of officers in the hopes it would be looked at again.
Lashenik retired in 2006 with the case still weighing on his mind.
Lashenik remembered the gruesome details of the slaying -- the stab
wound, the cord still wrapped around the neck of the decomposed body
-- and the evidence pointing to Bowen from the beginning.
"You could be a cop for one year or you could be a cop for 30 years,
[but] you're going to come across a case sooner or later that's going
to stick with you," Lashenik said. "You just want to see justice done.
You don't want to have any other kids have this happen to them."
Police declined Tuesday to discuss the evidence that made Bowen a
suspect from the start, but he had lived in the same neighborhood as
Kenneth and been suspected in the beating and sexual assault of
another boy at the time, according to court records.
By early 2006, Lake County Deputy Cmdr. Shaw Spurlock and Gary Sgt.
Thomas Decanter Jr. were working together, re-examining the case file
and trying to gain traction in the investigation.
In a strange twist, Decanter, whose father was one of the original
detectives on the case, received an anonymous call at 3 a.m. in 1992
from a woman who said she believed her brother killed Kenneth and that
she could no longer live with the guilt. She spoke with Decanter for
almost an hour, eventually identifying her brother as Bowen but
refusing to give her name, he said. But Decanter never followed up.
"I was brand new, didn't even have a badge at that point," Decanter
said. "Why didn't it go further then? I can't answer that." After the
case was reopened, Decanter told investigators of the call. Officers
researched Bowen's family records, identified his sister as Donna
Oprish, formerly of Gary, and contacted her.
Investigators persuaded her to divulge her suspicions about her
brother and then asked for a sample of her DNA. They compared her
sample with DNA from Kenneth's clothing and other articles recovered
from the crime scene in 1979.
The Indiana State Police Crime Lab determined someone related to
Oprish likely left seminal fluid on the hood of Kenneth's jacket.
Investigators located Bowen in Portland, Maine, where he was working
as a contractor, and executed a warrant to obtain his DNA. The lab
matched Bowen's DNA to the fluid from the jacket as well as on a piece
of string used to tie Kenneth's hand to a tree.
Bowen was arrested Tuesday morning, just minutes before the Lake
County Sheriff's Department announced the murder charge. He was
apprehended at a motel near a job site.
"This is a reminder that justice can be made and accountability can be
called upon regardless of how long time has exceeded," said Lake
County Prosecutor Bernard Carter, who approved the murder charge
Monday.
Bowen is scheduled to appear in court in Maine. If he fights
extradition, it could take 30 to 60 days to return him to Indiana,
Carter said.
Bowen, whom prosecutors intend to prosecute as an adult despite the
fact he was a juvenile at the time of the slaying, could face up to 60
years in prison if he is convicted, Carter said.
Though Kenneth's mother couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday,
police said she was elated in 2005 to learn that the investigation had
been reopened.
During a search of more than two weeks for Kenneth in October of 1979,
his mother had asked the community for help on the radio and in the
press. Search parties canvassed the area until he was found behind a
Salvation Army facility in unincorporated Lake County. The search
turned up his clothing, the keys to his home and his school lunchbox,
which contained a cookie.
In news accounts from that year, the mother said she hoped the killer
would be caught so that no one else would have to experience what her
son had. Police said the woman had already lost one child in a
drowning about two years before Kenneth's death.
----------
aahmed @tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-coldcasedec19,1,2598511.story
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