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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man that's going to sit back, light up, and hope that he doesn't chew the cigarette to pieces.
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Here is the captain. My mother tells me my face looks like a catcher's mitt. It's good to be seen.
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It's good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Today we are still sipping on some
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delicious cans and the beer is good, too. That's right. I'm talking about Asheville Hazy IPA from our friends at
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Sweeten Creek Brewing in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. This is an incredibly good hazy that hides the
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grade five out of five bottle caps. And here's some of our friends that are receiving high marks in our garage.
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First up, a big cheers to Scott Finney from Beer City, USA. That's Asheville, North Carolina.
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Everyone we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com and contributed to this week's beer fund
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and for that, well, we thank you. Yeah, say it with me. Come on, say it with me.
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B W R U N, beer run. Get you some. Make sure you're telling your friends. Make sure you go to iTunes
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and leave us a five-star review. Those really help us out. It makes us go higher up in the charts. And Colonel,
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that's enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true
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crime. Mary and Michael Short were found dead in their home on the morning of August
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15th, 2002. Their 9-year-old daughter missing from the scene. Apparently abducted after the parents were killed.
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And then over 2 weeks later in our investigation's timeline, here we are and there's still no sign of
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little Jennifer Short. Now, things really start to get weird here in this investigation. So, in early September of
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2002, the sheriff's office engineered the exhumation of Michael Short. Now, they would not
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say why and they also did not say why the plan didn't include the exhumation of Mary.
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That's strange. But Michael was exhumed and sent to the state medical examiner's office for
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forensic testing. The Daily News Leader later reported that court records indicated that Michael was exhumed in
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order to collect hairs that were not collected at autopsy. So, this was to right a wrong or to correct
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an error. Sheriff Cassell stated that the exhumation was done in order to correct an error, the oversight of not
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collecting hairs during the course of the autopsy. But he also commented that test proved
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that Mary Short was the biological mother of Jennifer Short, but would not address whether the same was true for
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Michael Short. Weird. He said the exhumation had nothing to do with the paternity test
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and that investigators knew the answer of whether Michael was Jennifer's dad and the information was important to the
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investigation. Okay, so wait a minute here. So, now we are concerned with paternity
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test and a double homicide case that involves a missing and presumed abducted 9-year-old kid.
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Follow that by a long line of question marks. Right. So, basically they probably
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talked to people close to the family and it might have been kind of understood by people close to
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them that that Michael wasn't the father. Well, and this is interesting to me, too. And they they have other
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reasons for doing this, but let's pretend that they're just simply thinking outside of the box here. You
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got to give big kudos here for that as being a possibility, right? Because what's the number one reason for child
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abduction in our country? It's based off of custody disputes. That's right. Or a parent who has
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taken their own child. Mhm. That happens daily. It's Unfortunately, it's probably
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happened several times through the course of recording this episode in our country. And so,
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you walk into a scenario and go, "Well, let's assume nothing." And knowing the statistics on
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parents abducting their own children, go, "Well, let's double-check and make sure that we have all of our facts
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correct before we really start to try to see this scenario for what it actually is."
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Well, this case is very strange for multiple reasons. We have two parents dead, we have a missing
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child, we have the phone lines being cut, and then we have this message that was left on the answering
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machine, which I'm assuming based on what was left we don't know the context of that
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message, but I'm guessing that it is directly related to this crime. Or not at all. I mean, this is these
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that's one of the items that has disappeared from the reporting over the course of years in this
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case and in this investigation that's going on 20 years now. But at this point in the investigation in September, so
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just a couple weeks after this case breaks, it looks like police, at least some, are
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believing that there is a possible theory here that Mary So, Mary is 14 years younger than Michael. So, were
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they working off of a possible theory that she may have had an affair or some type of relationship 9 to 10 years prior
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and perhaps Jennifer was not Michael's biological daughter? Right. And maybe the real father
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killed Michael and Mary and had come to collect his daughter for good. Well, as it turns out, that was
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actually one of the working theories at this time. And keep in mind, they're trying to find this little girl.
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Right. Double, triple down on the amount of of stress going on in the situation because
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they're not just investigating a double homicide, they're trying to find a little girl. So, clearly
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when you're not getting answers, when you can't find her, when you don't have suspects in your double homicide,
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you start to get a little desperate. So, it it would be it would be perfectly fine for us to assume that there's some
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desperation on the part of investigators at this point in our timeline. Yeah, and I know we give law enforcement
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[ __ ] sometimes, but could you imagine having to wake up and knowing that your job is to try to find a 9-year-old that
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you know has been taken from her house, that you know her parents have been murdered in their sleep. I mean, that
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would be a a stressful job. And it would appear that the agencies working the case didn't simply arrive at
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that theory completely on their own. No, because in the course of their investigation, they discovered that a
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decade earlier when Mary was working at the Pluma Sewing Factory, she had been harassed by a man on more
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than one occasion who seemed to be stalking her. And this was all released to the public
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in an article that came out because once this theory grows some legs and starts running here,
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now we have a situation where the investigators are going to be asking the public for information. Right. So, this
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theory carries some weight, right? One of the investigators, Captain Nester, states in this asking the public for
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information article, says he especially hopes that someone will remember an incident that occurred in
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1992 or 1993 when a man apparently harassed Mary Short at the Pluma Plant. The man was asked to leave the parking
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lot of the Pluma Plant in the Bulls Industry Park on several occasions. Yeah, it makes you wonder if
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it's a fair that went wrong. Like maybe she was having an affair with this guy, then she tried to break it off and he's
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like, "Not so fast." The man entered the plant on one occasion and Pluma officials
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removed him from the property. Police investigating the Short murders acknowledged these incidents and that an
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unknown man was angry with Mary. But 10 years prior, that's a long time to hold a grudge.
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This man was not recognized by Mary's coworkers, but interestingly, reportedly, Mary had asked for no
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charges to be brought against the man. As pointed out by someone on Websleuths, maybe someone believed either that
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Jennifer was his daughter or maybe just felt that she should have been his daughter.
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Anyway, investigators released a 10-year-old photo of Mary to show to the public to show
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what she looked like at the time of these events in hopes that some of her old coworkers may have a memory of these
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events and come forward and be able to fill in some of the blanks for investigators. So, yeah, the rough
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timing that law enforcement put on this incident 9 to 10 years earlier, it would
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appear that this may be what sparked not just the police's theory, but also that
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looking into confirming paternity status. I think that this is why law enforcement was checking on Jennifer's
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paternity. They thought that that just maybe Mary had actually engaged in relations with this guy and
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maybe he thought Jennifer was his daughter or was his daughter. Right. Now, releasing this photo, were they
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able to get any leads on this individual? If they were, we do not know of that information. Here's the crazy
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thing though, too, and you're right, Captain, that's something that you really want to know more about, isn't
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it? Like that's one of the pieces and parts in this investigation that really stands out at the moment and
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you go, "Okay." Well, even if even if she had no affair at all, even if no one would have any reason to
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believe that Jennifer was their daughter, this is still one of those things that
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you want to know more about, especially when you have no real leads, it looks like at this point. And when you have a
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situation where you have sheriffs coming forward saying, "We have no suspects." Tell me if I'm correct. You You You just
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said a couple minutes ago, "Law enforcement knows the answer to this question, but they're not giving us the answer."
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Correct. They're they're sidestepping the the question. They're sidestepping the answer. And there's good reason for
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that, and we'll get into that in just in just a minute here, but I should point out, I want to kind of
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throw out a counter to what the person on Websleuths says. I don't believe 100% that Mary
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And And again, I even question if this even happened, but the statement of Mary said that she
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didn't want to press charges against this guy. That would imply to me a few different things. What the person on
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Websleuths is saying that it implies to them is that maybe Mary knew this person, felt sympathetic, and didn't
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want to press any charges against him or didn't want to call, you know, more attention to the situation. Right. I
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look at this a different way. One, I don't believe that maybe there was even an opportunity
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for anyone to press charges because it sounds to me like just the simple act of trespassing into the plant, the company
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themselves could have pressed charges against this individual. They don't need Mary's permission to do so, number one.
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And then number two, where's this guy's name? Where's the paper trail on this dude? If you were to
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the point where somebody was questioning, "Should we press charges?" then his identity should be known. And
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we can't find anybody that says they know who the hell this guy was from 9 or 10 years prior. So, this would
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be '92, 1993. And the other thing though, too, I worked security for a long time. We had
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had several individuals that we that we snatched up for trespassing or even harassing people,
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and the majority of the time, the person who did not know the person that was trespassing or harassing them
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or people in the area, the majority of the time, nobody wanted to be bothered with it.
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They just felt like it was a matter for security to handle, and they didn't want
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to press charges. So, it's not completely out of character or completely uncommon for a person in this
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situation to not press charges. Well, all of this is going to lead us to September 21st, 2002. By this point, we
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have Jennifer's aunt and uncle who were appointed as her legal guardians. This by the Henry County
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courts and a Henry County judge. Everyone continued to hope against hope that the little girl was coming home and
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coming home soon. But then on September 25th, about 5 or 6 weeks after she was abducted, unfortunately, Jennifer was
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found and it was not good news. A man named Eddie Albert, who resided off of Grogan Road in Stoneville, North
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Carolina, was startled when his dogs, Blue Girl and Zeke, seemed to be playing with what he thought was a wig in his
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backyard. He threw it away. Then his 20-year-old grandson found a tennis shoe. A few days later, his
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daughter, Lisa, found some teeth, which she assumed were an animal's, but then Eddie's dogs were playing with what they
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thought at first was a turtle shell. Well, it wasn't a shell. It was a small human skull with some hair still
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attached. Authorities descended on this area, drained a pond that was nearby, and
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found more bones scattered about in multiple locations near a small stream on the Albert's property.
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The Rockingham County Sheriff said there were small fragments of jaw, teeth, and
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other bones strewn all over the place. And quote, "The skull was deemed to be from someone young given its small
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size." The Henry County investigators traveled to the area and were sent back with some
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hair from the skull to try to match it to hairs from Jennifer's belongings that were collected from the murder scene.
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But that's not how the identification was confirmed. It wasn't until early October that DNA tests conducted by a
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Virginia laboratory in Roanoke concluded that the remains that were found were that of Jennifer Short, and
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she had been shot once in the head just like her parents. She was dumped off of a small bridge into a stream on the
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Albert's rural property. Now, we should point out that unfortunately, it's been reported that only about 25 to
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maybe 30% of her remains were ever recovered, uh which complicates things, but it
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appears that her manner of death was the same as her parents with this single shot to the head. I'm
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assuming it's also with a .22. I've not seen any information to indicate with what caliber of bullet they believe
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killed the little girl. Right. But now that Jennifer was found, your mind goes immediately to, "All
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right, what about those paternity tests?" Well, the paternity test actually showed that
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Michael was w a s, was Jennifer's father. And that angle of the investigation led
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nowhere. Now, Sheriff Cassell addressed this later when he said that you know, he he he's apologizing for not
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conclusively identifying Michael Short as the biological father of Jennifer until a press conference at which
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he's stating that DNA test results confirmed that they found Jennifer and she in fact is dead. He's apologizing
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saying that if the biological father or the person who thought he was the biological father had
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Jennifer in his possession, that the sheriff and his office was afraid that this man would dispose of her
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learning that he was not the father. Right. So, just to kind of move on from this idea here because we know that it
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in the grand scheme of things, it's it's part of the story, but it doesn't mean so much to our current investigation
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into trying to figure out who killed, abducted, and later killed these three people.
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Because what he's saying here is, yes, that was an angle that we were working. That was a theory that we had. However,
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quickly, once we went down that road of that theory, very quickly, we knew that Michael was the father, but at that
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point, we didn't want to publicly announce that because we were working under the idea that Jennifer Short was
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still alive, and any news could potentially change that for the investigation, especially if
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whoever abducted her was keeping close eyes and close watch on the investigation. Yeah, which I understand,
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but also at the same time you could still have an individual out there that thought this is a possibility that she's
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my daughter or is 100% convinced that's my daughter and still kidnaps her. Yes, 100%. He
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simply apologizing that he had to withhold that information on purpose Right, right.
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from everyone during the course of searching for Jennifer Short. But what we have now is we have a second
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crime scene. The area where Jennifer's body was found. And this location is about 30 or
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so miles south of the Short family's home. Again, this is a rural area. This is Rockingham County, North Carolina.
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There was no known connection between this location and anybody in the Short family.
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And authorities weren't giving much out as to whether they thought this new location was significant to their
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investigation. Now, we have to talk about another sheriff because now we're talking about
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another location. Right, another county. So, Sheriff Page, who is known for his tough law and order
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type attitude and his love of the cameras, would not comment about whether they thought Jennifer had been killed
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where she was found or if she had been killed elsewhere and then later dumped in this location. Nor would he or anyone
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else comment on whether evidence indicated the little girl had been sexually assaulted or otherwise
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assaulted. Right. To expand on that a little bit here, Captain, this is one of those things
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where it's so incredibly frustrating and spoiler alert, there are a lot of people out
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there that know this case, so we're not going to hide from the fact that it's 20 years later, it's still
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unsolved. But this is one of those things where you go, it's been all these years later,
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there's so much that they have withheld from the public. Can can we can we start to release some of this
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information? Is it probably too late to really have any meaningful impact on the
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investigation to release any of this information now? Could be, but you know, here we sit 20 years later. We have a
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lot of a lot of questions about the Short family's home, that crime scene, but we now have questions about this
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secondary crime scene, the crime scene where the little girl was eventually found. We don't know whether clothing
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was found. Uh we do know that she was skeletonized by this point. We do know that bones
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were scattered. They could not tell whether she was assaulted. No one has reported on when
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Jennifer was killed. We don't know if she was killed the same night that she was abducted or days later or weeks
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later. Right. Skeletonized to me would indicate that she was probably killed weeks before the body was found. Yeah,
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at least. And it might even indicate that she was killed shortly after the time that she was abducted. Well, I
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agree with you. They have some stuff that maybe they could release, but let's say this tape
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this voice message is connected to the crime. The problem with releasing that, because
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that could be a possible identifier of of the murderer's voice, it's but what is the content of that
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message and is that appropriate to release to the public? Yeah, it's difficult to say cuz we don't
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know what that message is. We don't know if it is even connected at all to this case.
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But don't you so badly just want to hear that message? Um yeah, there's there's a
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lot of things that I would like to know in this case. I would like to know more about the bodies being found at the
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home. Right. I would like to know more about things like clothing. I would want to know if there was any indication if
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the killer or killers spent any amount of time in the home. And and I you know, any somebody out there is going, well,
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of course they spent some time in the home, Colonel. Right. No duh. Uh thanks. Uh I what I mean is
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Thanks. how long were they in there? You know, it's it it's one of those crimes where you go, okay, there's
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there's efforts made to carry out this crime, the cutting of the phone lines, the avoiding of taking the money.
00:24:21
There's very weird things about this crime that indicate to me that the person or persons responsible did not
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want to spend any length of time in the home. Yeah, shots to the head. But then we had Yeah, then we had the weird
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statement of, well, there was there might have been somebody that wrote something with their finger
00:24:39
somewhere on a on a window. There might have been an obscene message that was left on the
00:24:46
answering machine tape. It to me, like I also see a scenario too where if that answering machine tape is of any
00:24:53
importance, why it wasn't just grabbed by the killer on his way out of the home would make a lot of sense to me. I mean,
00:25:02
you went to the trouble of cutting the phone lines. But of course that's why in part some of these cases
00:25:10
are still unsolved. It's not meant to make sense to all of us. It's not meant to make sense to you and I when we sit
00:25:16
here again elevated 30,000 ft above looking down on the scenario trying to make heads or tails of things.
00:25:24
But there was a suspect that came onto the radar shortly after the little girl's remains were found.
00:25:32
So, the Daily News Leader put out an article on the case dated October 5th that says investigators say they have
00:25:41
not made any arrests, but want to interview a man who lived in the county where Jennifer Short's remains were found and
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whose rented house and mobile home were recently searched. All right, welcome back everybody.
00:26:36
Cheers to you all. Cheers to the people in the back. And the ones in the front row.
00:26:44
Just the front, not the second row. row, screw you. Kind of stinky. This person that comes on the radar here,
00:26:51
Captain, his name is Garrison Bowman, age 66. And this is somebody that we will learn was
00:27:00
it sounds like a tip is received just a couple days after the murders that indicates that Garrison Bowman, age
00:27:08
66, is someone that police should be looking at. And this tip came in from a man named Gary Lemons.
00:27:16
He called the police and named a tenant or a former tenant of his, depending on how you want to look at the situation,
00:27:23
as being somebody that they should look at. So, the News and Record reported they got their hands on a search warrant
00:27:30
of the home that Bowman was renting from this uh Gary Lemons. And it sounds more like he was renting the
00:27:41
property, but we'll get into that here in just a minute. So, according to the search warrants,
00:27:48
his former landlord, Gary Lemons, he's Harrison Bowman's former landlord, said that Bowman told him
00:27:57
that he had paid an unnamed mobile home mover. Remember, Michael Short owns a mobile home moving company.
00:28:05
Gary Lemons says that Bowman told him that he had paid an unknown unnamed mobile home mover in Virginia, again,
00:28:11
where the Shorts live, to move a mobile home he owned, but that the man never moved it.
00:28:17
And that either the mobile home mover is going to pay him his money back or he's
00:28:22
going to move the trailer or I'm going to have to kill the son of a [ __ ] This is what Lemons tells police that
00:28:30
Bowman told him. Well, there's your motive. And he states that Bowman told him this via a phone conversation. And
00:28:39
of course, as we pointed out, Michael Short owned a mobile home moving company in Virginia. We should be clear here
00:28:46
because some people might be scratching their heads a bit, but Gary Lemons and Harrison Bowman live in North Carolina.
00:28:53
Now, Lemons Gary Lemons said that on the night of August 15th, this is the day that the Short family was killed, uh
00:29:01
that he went to the home of Harrison Bowman and Bowman confronted him and at that time
00:29:08
he was carrying a gun and ordered Gary Lemons off of his property. Sometime before that day, Lemons said he
00:29:15
saw Harrison Bowman drilling holes in the passenger section of the Ford alkaline van he drove and placing a
00:29:25
false bottom in the van. Harrison Bowman left for Canada the day after the shootings.
00:29:34
Also found was a map that was left behind in this abandoned home was marked with a red X in the
00:29:41
approximate location of the Shorts home in Henry County, Virginia. Before he left, Harrison Bowman gave
00:29:49
some of his belongings away including $10,000 worth of carpentry tools and his mobile home which he moved to a site on
00:29:58
Webster Road. Jennifer Short's remains were found on Grogan Road. This just about a mile from
00:30:06
the Webster Road site. Gary Lemons had called in this tip about Harrison Bowman just two or three days
00:30:13
after the murders. Authorities searched the home and mobile home and he had vacated and started trying to track him
00:30:21
down and the FBI had spoken to Harrison Bowman on the phone from Canada asking him about the case. And look, they're
00:30:29
probably also looking for that .22. But it won't be that hard for this individual to discard that weapon
00:30:37
because there's quite a bit of distance between him and and where the murders took place. Yeah, we have about 30 miles
00:30:45
or so. We also have a good distance between where he used to live and where he is found in Canada. One thing that we
00:30:53
should point out though that that Bowman was not Look, he's in another country. He could
00:30:58
dodge them fairly easily and he spoke to them on the phone, the investigators on
00:31:04
the phone several times. This shortly after the tip comes in. Remember they when these tips come in,
00:31:11
when they first start looking at Harrison Bowman, they've not found Jennifer Short yet.
00:31:16
And so he basically tells law enforcement, "Yeah, I moved from the area. I'm in Canada now. This is where I
00:31:24
am if you need to get a hold of me in the future, but I don't know who the the Shorts are. I don't know who that family
00:31:29
is. I I've never been to that area that I can recall. Henry County, Virginia, Highway 220, I've never been to that
00:31:39
area. If you need to get a hold of me, this is how you can get a hold of me going forward, but basically I have no
00:31:45
knowledge of this crime. Nothing to help you with your investigation." That seems to be good enough for
00:31:53
investigators early on. What's not good enough is once they find Jennifer Short's body. Yeah, that connects her
00:32:00
way more to this suspect. They find her body, part of her remains located about a mile
00:32:07
from the site where he moved his mobile home to before leaving the area. Oh, and by the
00:32:14
way, the FBI said that the person you're looking for might want to get out of dodge, might want to
00:32:23
flee the area shortly after the crimes. Well, I think as humans, law enforcement, armchair detectives,
00:32:31
whatever you want to call us, two dumbasses in the garage, when you see a crime like this, this is
00:32:38
a awful crime. Two parents dead and a abduction of a young girl later found dead, you you don't want to
00:32:50
think that it's over something so simple as "Well, I wanted this guy to move my trailer and he didn't want to."
00:32:58
Or possibly couldn't. Or took my money. Right. Yeah, it just doesn't seem like it adds
00:33:08
up or should add up. But obviously the evidence is starting to point in this direction. On October
00:33:16
3rd, Harrison Bowman was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Una Vic, which is a town north of the
00:33:27
Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories. He had been arrested in Canada on August
00:33:35
31st for drunk driving and his failure to disclose previous criminal convictions in the US related to
00:33:43
Canadian immigration laws. So, the way that this works, Captain, is when he went across the border, he is
00:33:52
supposed to let them know, "Hey, you know, have you ever been convicted of of a serious crime
00:33:57
where you're coming from?" And he says, "No." But when he was arrested on August 31st in Canada for
00:34:04
drunk driving, what they learn is, well, he had in fact been arrested for a DUI arrest
00:34:11
back when he lived in the States. So, he lies to immigration and violates Canada's
00:34:20
immigration laws by not disclosing of that previous DUI arrest. So, now he's arrested October 3rd, but
00:34:30
he's arrested simply for the the reasons of holding him to deport him back to the States, but
00:34:38
also so he can be transferred to the custody of the persons individ- investigating the
00:34:46
triple homicide case. So, Bowman was held in Canada and the US authorities investigating the Short
00:34:53
murders flew up there to talk with him. They went through all of his belongings while he was held pending deportation
00:34:59
back to North Carolina. They publicly announced that they were talking to him as a material witness, not as a suspect
00:35:08
in the Short murders. On October 15th of 2002, by then Bowman was deported and he
00:35:15
arrived back in Virginia back in Virginia by October 22nd of that year. Now, Harrison Bowman, for his part, he
00:35:24
swore up and down that he had no idea who the Shorts were. He had no idea what had happened to them. He didn't even
00:35:32
understand why he was being wrapped up in this whole thing. He denied saying any of those menacing things
00:35:39
about a mobile home mover to his landlord. He said, "I never said that I was going to have to kill a mobile home
00:35:47
mover. I never discussed a mobile home mover with my landlord." Why would this guy just make this up? He also states
00:35:54
that when the landlord came to his home and says that I I was holding a gun and told
00:36:01
him to leave the property, "Well, that didn't happen either. I don't even own a gun.
00:36:06
I've never owned a gun." And he stated too, he goes, "Look, I get that it looks awfully suspicious that these people
00:36:13
were killed and I'm up here in Canada, but I was planning to move to Canada for months. This wasn't just something that
00:36:23
I just decided and and moved here after they were killed. I was planning on moving here for months. The timing for
00:36:31
me is just bad. The timing is just a coincidence for your investigation." So, that was his defense, but it appears
00:36:39
that there was some circumstantial evidence that Bowman might have just killed the
00:36:45
Short family. Again, he lived very close to where Jennifer's body was found. That's a bizarre coincidence because
00:36:53
this really is out in the middle of nowhere. He also owned a mobile home that indeed
00:37:00
was in the process of being relocated and Michael Short owns that mobile home moving company. Mhm. But it doesn't seem
00:37:08
like police were able to find anything physically at his former residence or in his possession when they pick him up in
00:37:16
Canada that would tie him directly to this case, to these crimes, the triple homicide.
00:37:23
Well, I'd love to see this asshat's phone records. Well, he's certainly being looked at in this case and looked
00:37:29
at quite well. Again, back to his defense here, you know, he's saying that he left for Canada, but that was well
00:37:41
planned. It was something that he had planned for months. And he he also denied again stating that
00:37:49
that he would have to kill the man that he paid in Virginia to move his mobile home,
00:37:56
that if he didn't do the job or he didn't get his money refunded, he would have to kill him. So, he denies this. He
00:38:01
says, "Look, couple problems with this story is the statement about me killing a
00:38:09
Virginia man to move my mobile home because he cheated me, that never happened."
00:38:17
He said that he had arranged for his mobile home to be moved onto his buddy John Beasley's property for storage.
00:38:24
And Harrison Bowman intended to give the mobile home to a person named Lori Butler, who is a friend and former
00:38:32
employee of his who lived in Michigan. And we should also point out that prior to this, that Harrison Bowman had been
00:38:41
to Canada several times before and had had also been to Alaska. So, it's not like he's just
00:38:49
up and up and leaving his life. This is something he's contemplated probably for
00:38:54
a while. Not only that, he's saying that some of this suspicion that is cast onto
00:38:59
him from his previous landlord, Gary Lemons, is based off of a dispute that two of
00:39:07
them had leading up to the time that he was going to leave. So, he was planning on leaving the area,
00:39:13
according to Bowman, and and going to move to Canada. And so, he's an older man at this point. I He's 66 years old.
00:39:22
And it sounds to me, Captain, like his plan was, "Well, I'm I'm kind of done. I'm going to kind of retire and it's
00:39:30
always been a dream of mine to live up in Canada. Now's the time for me to do this."
00:39:36
So, what we see by this individual is not only is he leaving this area, he's rented this property from this Gary
00:39:44
Lemons for years. Right. Uh well over a decade that I could find. And he says that the dispute happened
00:39:52
one because Gary kind of turned on him once he was going to no longer be renting from him.
00:39:58
He was going to lose a renter. But he also says, "Look, Gary just assumed that he was going to inherit
00:40:05
my mobile home. That when I leave the area he would just take possession of it because I wouldn't be taking it with
00:40:12
me." And so there he said that a lot of this stems from a dispute over this mobile home. To me, that's a little
00:40:20
difficult to believe that somebody would try to mark you up and frame you for triple homicide.
00:40:27
I don't think framed is a good word. Maybe this happened and then Gary Lemons just got suspic- suspicious of this guy
00:40:34
for for one reason or another. But what we do know about the situation is it does appear that he had been making
00:40:41
these arrangements for some time. He had gifted the mobile home to a friend. He was giving away approximately $10,000
00:40:51
worth of tools. So that was his old business. He no longer needs that business because
00:40:56
he's retiring and moving to Canada. So some of his actions prior to the triple homicide would indicate that
00:41:04
there may be some truth to his defense. Yeah, but I think this guy would have to
00:41:10
admit that there's definitely a couple things pointing in two his direction. It's not just all
00:41:17
fabric- fabricated. So we have a suspect. But the this Chris Thompson guy, the Michael's employee, the one that was
00:41:24
there the night before, and then the one that found them. Um I I wish we knew more about him.
00:41:33
And and why law law enforcement hasn't brought him into the forefront. Well, yeah. I mean they they looked at
00:41:42
him several times. They've interviewed him several times over the course of the years. We don't know a lot about Chris
00:41:48
Thompson. That's for certain. But the other thing here though, too, we're not ready to move off of this Harrison
00:41:54
Bowman. Because as you said he you, me, and everybody else involved would agree that there seems to be some
00:42:03
reason, some possibly good reasons for them to be looking at him and considering them him as their prime
00:42:11
suspect. Right. So I mean he's not just arrested and sent back for his violation of of
00:42:18
Canadian immigration laws. No, he's he's sent back because of that violation, but
00:42:23
he's also sent back for the purpose of investigating him in this triple homicide.
00:42:28
And we have the sheriff's offices as well as the FBI who interrogate Harrison Bowman for
00:42:37
approximately 3 and 1/2 hours. And he ends up telling uh a local newspaper afterwards. He said, "Look, Nestor."
00:42:46
He's referring to one of the sheriffs. "Nestor told me right out, you did it. I know you did it." Bowman said, "I looked
00:42:54
him right in the eye and said I didn't do it. I I know I didn't do it, and God knows I
00:43:01
didn't do it." And that was the end of the interview. Now, in Virginia, Harrison Bowman faced
00:43:07
a federal judge who ruled he could be held pending his appearance before the grand jury. But on the 30th, both
00:43:15
prosecutors and the defense lawyers asked that he be released as long as he promised to appear before the federal
00:43:22
grand jury on November 12th. Okay, so one thing we need to point out though, too
00:43:29
is even though this dude was in Canada he wasn't dodging police. The police made it well known that they
00:43:37
were looking for Harrison Bowman well before they spoke with Harrison Bowman. Right. So the way that this guy is
00:43:44
saying he's not dodging them. He's not dodging them at all. And again, he was in a whole different country. It would
00:43:49
have been I'm guessing fairly easy for him to dodge them or to delay them finding him.
00:43:56
Right. But what happens is remember the person that he was gifting the mobile home to who lived in Michigan?
00:44:02
She becomes aware that they are looking for her friend Harrison Bowman. She knows where he is in Canada. She reach
00:44:11
out to him and said, "Hey, there was a murder down there in Virginia, in South Virginia, right
00:44:17
before you left for Canada, and the police are actively saying that they would like to interview you as a
00:44:23
possible witness." Right. He contacts police, Harrison Bowman. Not the other way around. It wasn't
00:44:30
police that contacted him. He figures out how to get in touch with the law enforcement agency that is investigating
00:44:37
this homicide, and he reaches out to them. So the friends of Garrison Bowman Gary Lemons pointed the finger at him in
00:44:46
this August 15th slayings of the Virginia family. That this is all based off of an angry
00:44:53
landlord who wanted Garrison Bowman's mobile home and had ordered him to move out weeks before Bowman left Rockingham
00:45:03
County for Canada. The landlord Gary Lemons was furious because Bowman deeded his 1966 mobile home to a friend in
00:45:13
Michigan instead of leaving it for Lemons when Bowman left Rockingham County in August. This based off of the
00:45:21
two longtime friends of Garrison Bowman. So the two friends are John Beasley and
00:45:28
this Lori Butler. We've mentioned both of them already. They're coming to Garrison Bowman's defense here.
00:45:36
And they state that the situation is this, that Gary Lemons the landlord is ordering Bowman off of the property.
00:45:45
And Rockingham County where they live does not allow mobile homes built before 1976 to be moved and set up again within
00:45:54
the county according to the county planning department. That's why Bowman gave it to a friend
00:46:01
out of state according to Lori Butler, the person that he gave it to. His only option for keeping what was
00:46:09
val- you had a $15,000 mobile home in Rockingham County would have been to leave it hooked up on Gary Lemons'
00:46:18
property. So does that make sense to everybody out there that this guy was in a situation where either he has to move
00:46:27
this trailer, this mobile home, and gift it to somebody out of state, or he would be
00:46:34
either forced to sell it to his landlord Gary Lemons or just leave it there. And Gary Lemons would take possession of
00:46:42
it. And Gary Lemons would know all of this. So if he were to try to sell it to him
00:46:48
well, he would be almost forced to sell it to Gary Lemons for whatever price Lemons wanted to offer
00:46:54
to him. Well, you said that there were threats, but are these threats only heard by one
00:47:00
individual? The only person that reported these threats was Gary Lemons. And in his defense, Bowman states
00:47:10
"Look, I I didn't know who Michael Short was. I never hired Michael Short to move
00:47:14
my trailer." He says that he hired a mobile home mover in Eden. Although this is not great for Bowman,
00:47:23
he was unable to provide the name of the person that he hired in Eden. But he does go on to state on record saying,
00:47:31
"Look, you don't get somebody from Virginia to come down to North Carolina to move your trailer. You get somebody
00:47:38
local." And he says he's a contractor himself. And he states, "As a contractor I know
00:47:45
you never pay somebody in advance, or you can just kiss that money goodbye." So he's saying
00:47:52
"Look, based off of the threat, I don't pay people in advance, especially contractors, to do work for me." Right.
00:47:59
There would be no reason for me to get revenge on somebody because I would never pay them in advance. He also goes
00:48:05
on to point out what is just simply fact here is Michael Short on Michael Short's end
00:48:13
they don't find anything paperwork or otherwise to suggest that he did any work for
00:48:20
Bowman. Right. Or that he was scheduled to do any work for Bowman, or that he collected any kind of payment from
00:48:26
Bowman. And Bowman states, "Look, Michael Short he doesn't have a license to do this
00:48:33
kind of work in North Carolina. I live in a different state than Michael Short."
00:48:39
And then as far as the threatening Gary Lemons with the handgun, telling him to get you know, off of his property or or
00:48:45
away from his home he simply states, "I never owned a gun, so that's not true. I've never borrowed a gun, so that's not
00:48:52
true." On the allegations that he had some kind of secret compartment that he built in his
00:48:59
van Bowman said he had no idea how to build a false floor on the bottom of the van. Bowman's 2001 Ford van that he took
00:49:08
to Canada well, they searched it. It's pretty easy for law enforcement to determine he did
00:49:14
not put a false floor in that van. There was no secret compartment that was built
00:49:19
into that van. So where this idea Gary Lemons came up with however he arrived at that idea, he did
00:49:27
tell that information to law enforcement, and law enforcement can look at that van and know, well, this
00:49:33
this one part at the very least, you know, we have a lot of he said he said situations
00:49:39
here, but this one part is not true. This one statement that Gary Lemons gave us about Bowman building a false floor
00:49:47
and a secret compartment in his van, well, that's just simply not true. Right, it's a lie. So, we could then
00:49:53
assume that some of these other accusations against him that like point him to be a a good suspect are also
00:50:01
lies. The other thought, too, he states about Canada. He says, "I wasn't running
00:50:06
from anything. That was my third trip up in that country. I was going to Canada with the idea of moving to Canada. I
00:50:14
just love it up there. I love the people. I love the country." Bowman said that he had been planning
00:50:19
the trip for months and had given some of his tools to friends weeks before he left and that was proof that he was
00:50:25
leaving. Bowman's friends, John Beasley and Danny Sizemore, have both corroborated this portion of his story
00:50:33
uh both the law enforcement and publicly in the media. About the map. Now, remember there was a
00:50:39
map on it and what the media was reporting was that this map had an X that marked the spot on the map and this
00:50:48
was the same location as where the Shorts' home would have been located on on that map. And Bowman basically says,
00:50:58
"Look, I I don't have an explanation for the map. I can't give you a great answer
00:51:04
why they would have a map with an X on it where the Shorts' family home was located and and found this map
00:51:12
in a place that I previously rented." Right. He did say that it was he believed it was his map.
00:51:19
He said that he was an avid canoe-er and that he would typically underline he would make a single line of locations
00:51:28
that he canoe-ed or wanted to canoe. So, again, he's he's saying, "I don't I'm not denying that you found a map in
00:51:35
my previously rented home. I'm just don't understand what the X is. And I understand that that that X may
00:51:44
implicate me for a triple homicide, but I don't make X's on maps. I make a single line." He did point out that
00:51:51
maybe his ex-wife may have marked an X on the map at one point for some reason or other. She was
00:51:59
interviewed and states that she does not recall ever marking an X on a map belonging to
00:52:05
Bowman. But then later we find out that while this whole X marks the spot of the triple homicide
00:52:14
on the map seems very shady, a huge red flag on the part of Bowman, we learn that
00:52:22
that was not really 100% truthfully reported in the media. It was sensationalized a bit.
00:52:30
They did find a map with an X on it and the X was somewhat near where the Shorts' home would be located.
00:52:38
However, after looking at the map, they determined that it would be approximately 5 miles from where the
00:52:46
Shorts lived. So, while it sounded good in the papers, it's not going to sound so great in a
00:52:51
court of law. And the other thing, too, this is found after Bowman left the area.
00:52:58
It's a possibility that somebody else put that X on that map. It's a possibility that Gary Lemons put
00:53:05
the X on that map. Yeah, it seems like there's some things to make some things of evidence to make you want to look
00:53:14
into this individual, but it doesn't seem like a lot of them stick or hold up. And but then you just wonder why would
00:53:22
this guy, just because they had a dispute, he would want this individual looked into to this
00:53:28
double homicide? Well, the thing here is we have a lot of he said he said scenarios within this situation. We do
00:53:36
have things that were proven to be wrong, allegations by Gary Lemons that were proven to be not factual, not
00:53:43
correct. But Gary Lemons wasn't the only one he was not the only one that was pointing the finger at Bowman for these
00:53:53
homicides. In fact, what we had was we have three men, Timothy Sampson, Jerry Mills and Tony Epperson,
00:54:02
who two of these three men came forward and stated that they may have seen Bowman leaving the murder scene the
00:54:11
night of the double homicide. We have Mr. Sampson who began anonymously contacting
00:54:19
a Captain Bobby Lawson of the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office in August of 2003.
00:54:28
So, this is a year after the murders. Mr. Sampson claimed that he and another man, Mr. Mills,
00:54:37
had been scouting an area near the Short home to conduct burglaries. And the date given on this, he states,
00:54:46
is August 15th, 2002. He states that when they were out there, he and Mr. Mills heard two gunshots
00:54:53
coming from the Short family home. He then claimed that he saw a man who resembled Abraham Lincoln,
00:55:02
later identified as Gary Bowman, carrying a child who was wearing a nightgown from the Short home. I'm
00:55:11
sorry. So, when you have this he said he said scenario going on and you don't know who's right and who's wrong, one
00:55:18
guy defending himself, one accusing the other, now we have these witnesses coming
00:55:24
forward that somebody matching Bowman's description was seen by these guys carrying
00:55:33
a child wearing a nightgown from the home after hearing two gunshots. Well, that's probably most damning piece
00:55:40
of evidence against him is would be these eyewitnesses. Well, and you're right here, Captain. It
00:55:45
looks very bad for Garrison Bowman that now we have these witnesses saying that they saw him fleeing the scene
00:55:54
carrying the the the child with him as he's leaving the scene. There's all kinds of problems though
00:56:03
with this investigation. And not just on the Garrison Bowman front. So, looking at the Garrison Bowman portion
00:56:13
of this, we we have people coming forward telling law enforcement, "Look, this guy he's he's would have been 66
00:56:22
years old at the time. We've known him forever. We've never known him to be violent. We've never
00:56:27
known him to carry a gun. So, we question all these things that this Gary Lemons is saying about him. Oh, by the
00:56:34
way, we do know that and this is fact we know that Garrison Bowman took a polygraph test. We do not know the
00:56:44
actual results of the that test. What we do know is Garrison or Gary Bowman has said on record that he was told that
00:56:54
he passed that polygraph, but we only have his word to take for it because police have never commented on that
00:57:01
polygraph test. But now we have these witnesses who are saying, "We see him leaving the area."
00:57:08
The problem though becomes there must not have been that great of a case against Garrison Bowman because it goes
00:57:15
to a grand jury and they decide that there is not enough evidence or enough reason to charge him in the crime.
00:57:26
And he's present and he's cooperating for all of these parts and pieces of this investigation. What we end up
00:57:32
having happen is that in 2005, this is in March of 2005. Three men, Timothy Sampson, Jerry Mills
00:57:43
and Tony Epperson, were indicted for making up a bunch of lies to try to collect reward money in this case.
00:57:52
Which is just sad because you want to believe eyewitnesses. You don't You don't want to believe that they just
00:57:57
came forward to put try to put the nail on somebody's coffin so they can get some money.
00:58:03
It's a pretty despicable and not honorable people. WFMY News 2 had coverage on the story. They
00:58:13
state, "Investigators say Sampson, Mills and Epperson all lied to officers about
00:58:18
what they observed the night the Short family was murdered. According to the indictment, Sampson and Mills told
00:58:25
police that they were in Bassett, Virginia the night of the Short family murders. The two told investigators they
00:58:32
were scoping out the area for a possible burglary. Sampson claimed he heard two gunshots coming from inside the Shorts'
00:58:40
home and then saw a man resembling Abraham Lincoln carrying a child and a gun out of the house. Sampson later
00:58:48
identified the man as Gary or Garrison Bowman. Investigators say this whole story is a lie made up by Sampson and
00:58:57
Mills. In addition, the indictment alleges Sampson and Mills also made threats against two law enforcement
00:59:05
officers working the case. Both of these officers have had their lives threatened simply because they
00:59:12
were doing their job by investigating the case, says John Brownlee, US Attorney for the Western District of
00:59:20
Virginia. Timothy Sampson, 40 at the time, of Rudolph County, is charged with threatening to
00:59:28
kill two law enforcement officers and forcing his daughter to falsely testify in the case. Also, Jerry Mills,
00:59:37
42 of Guilford County, is accused of conspiracy, perjury, and providing false information. Tony Epperson, age 32 of
00:59:45
Stokes County, is accused of providing false information to the task force investigating the murders. So, not only
00:59:53
do police not believe their story of these witnesses, they don't believe them so much that
00:59:59
they can prove that they lied to police and charged them with conspiracy, with perjury, with
01:00:07
providing false information. Right. And one of the d-bags goes out of his way to threaten the lives of two of the
01:00:14
law enforcement officers working the homicide case. Yeah, what d-bags. These d-bags now have become p-bags and
01:00:22
we're going to look at them as suspects. Now, we won't go into the trials and convictions of these Yahoo's.
01:00:30
The US attorney, John Brownlee, said of the men, "Mr. Sampson's conviction makes it clear
01:00:37
that we will not tolerate anyone lying to investigators or wasting government resources in this manner.
01:00:44
And Mr. Epperson provided false information to investigators during 17, that's 17, 17 separate interviews. He
01:00:55
wasted the investigators valuable time and caused them to spend limited resources."
01:01:19
Join us back here in the garage. It's always exciting when the case turns into a three-parter. So much more to get to.
01:01:26
Stick around until then. Be good, be kind, and don't litter.