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Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646

November 16, 2023 / 53:09

This episode covers the mysterious disappearance and murder of Gai Bowman, a well-liked businesswoman from Ohio. Key topics include her last known whereabouts, the discovery of her van, and the investigation into her death.

Gai Bowman went missing on February 15, 1993, after telling coworkers she had a business meeting. Her van was found two days later in a Best Western parking lot, raising suspicions about her disappearance.

Authorities later discovered Gai's body in Delaware County, identified through dental records. The investigation revealed that she had been strangled and her body concealed under trash, leading to a homicide investigation.

Witnesses reported seeing Gai last between 6:45 and 7:00 PM on the day she vanished. The timeline of events and the location of her body suggest a deliberate attempt to conceal her murder.

Throughout the episode, the hosts discuss the complexities of the case, including Gai's relationships with her ex-husband and current husband, and the challenges faced by law enforcement in solving the case.

TLDR

Gai Bowman, a businesswoman, vanished in 1993; her body was later found, and the case was ruled a homicide.

Episode

53:09
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime there will be no
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end said Dorothy Leighton 37-year-old wife mother and business owner gaitha Bowman went missing on
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February 15th 1993 that year February 15th was a Monday and a busy one for G there was a
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lot going on that day it is fairly easy to narrow down when gai was land last scene to probably a window of just a few
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hours however due to the untruthfulness of several individuals at the very center of this case it has been
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nearly impossible to know the exact hour that gaitha was last seen and more importantly by
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who gaitha was well-liked and adored by many she was smart she was a natural beauty and she loved being a
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mother gai owned pereda an up incoming company that provided Health Care to those confined to their homes Joe
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Valerio who worked with gai for over 2 years said gaitha was an inspiration to his career choices quote she had a heart
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as big as all Outdoors one of the saddest aspects to this case case is that gai was so well
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liked by everyone but when it comes down to getting some form of justice for this
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lady some of those closest to gtha chose to protect themselves rather than help a
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friend or even a loved one in 1999 Dorothy Leighton gai's mother told the news journal quote I know with other
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people like in a traffic accident or something there's an end and this one there won't be an
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end I say Nay it's been a long time coming and way overdue but it is time for those to come
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forward especially the ones who knew her the best to come forward and come together and tell the truth about what
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happened to gai AB Bowman this is true crime garage [Music] Gaya Bowman was a well-liked and
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wellknown business owner she and her second husband Gary Bowman owned and operated Premed Healthcare which is
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described as a diverse i ified medical supply business and a nationwide provider of health care services and
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products offering free delivery free home evaluation and no charge for respiratory therapy
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consultation the company's products include wheelchairs oxygen bedside items dressings pumps Respiratory Care and
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More Premed also offers Furniture examining tables and scales for doctor's office as well as uniforms gai Bowman is
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listed as the president of the company now we say here captain that gaitha and her husband Gary Bowman owned this
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business however it's clear that this was gaya's business Gary worked elsewhere he had other jobs he would
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come in and help from time to time but he was not a health care professional Gaya was the health care professional
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and she was the Pres president of Premed but she was also the official owner operator of this business yeah sometimes
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they put the husband or the spouse of the individual on the business so they can get a better business loan correct
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my guess here Captain is that we have both names on the business simply for the purposes of the banks this business
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was a success and you can hear there what they are offering they're offering a wide range of products to their
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potential customers plus they offer a wide area of coverage for their customers they provide service to
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residents of Mansfield Mount Vernon Belleville Mount Galina and upper sanduski Ohio so a wide coverage area
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that they are supplying these medical supplies to their customers and as you can hear you get a lot of bang for your
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buck if you are dealing with preda they offer all of these free services to go along with you purchasing supplies from
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them so the business was a success and it was a growing business and in fact life in general was or seemed to be a
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success for gai and Gary Bowman now Gary was gai's second husband the two had a daughter together her name is Christina
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now where our story picks up Christina is still rather young she is 3 years old getting close to turning four Gaya has a
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son from her previous marriage his name is Jason he is about 11 years old at the
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time of the story Jason's father is many would say still very much in the picture
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but that's an an understatement he is very much in the picture yes but gai and her ex were
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doing the shared custody thing and from everything I could find from what everyone was saying the parenting
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relationship was a very good one a very strong relationship so no bad blood there between ex-wife and ex-husband our
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story Captain is going to start off here on a Monday yeah Monday February 15th 1993 at the time gaitha is living with
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her current husband Gary and the two children Jason from her previous marriage and Christina they are living
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on imp hula Drive in Richland County Ohio this home address Bears significant importance to this case in my humble
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opinion and we will get into the reasons why as we get into the details of the timeline and the investigation itself
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for those of you that are more familiar with the great state of Ohio you may know that Richland county is about an
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hour's Drive North and a little to the east of Columbus Ohio which is in the the Center The Heart of Ohio the county
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seat of Richland county is Mansfield which we have referenced in other cases previously covered here in the garage
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the population was about 127,000 residents for the county back then so not a super large population but
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not small either Mansfield's population back then was over 50,000 people so much
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much larger than any of the suburbs surrounding Columbus Ohio at the time now we said our story will start off
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with Monday February 15 1993 and that's true but to be clear here there is some confusion here Captain because we will
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end up with reports stating that this is the last time gaitha was seen or heard from what will kick off this
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investigation is the missing person's report a missing person 's report was filed with Richland County Sheriff's
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Office on the following day Tuesday February 16th Gaya didn't come home the previous day on the 15th and does not
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arrive for work on the morning of the 16th both which is incredibly out of character for this mother and the owner
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of this business is it uncharacteristic of her not to come home at night cuz does she travel to for sales or anything
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yes that's correct it's characteristic for her not to come home that night and you're right though she is very involved
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in the business as one would expect the owner and operator of a successful business as we said she's the president
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of Premed and frankly she is practically running the whole show over there you know she's very Hands-On she's the
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leader everybody that works for her is under her lead and they actually they are under her
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leadership as not just the boss and the owner of the business but also they're trying to grow their careers as well
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right and they say you know she was an inspiration to see her running this operation and the things that I learned
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from her it was an inspiration to my career and my career choices going forward she was not just a leader but an
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inspiration so her employees they don't hear from her on the 16th well that's strange not only is she a noow which is
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completely out of character but there's no communication to any of the employees
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as to where she could be why she's not at work that day so she's reported missing on this day on February 16th
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1993 so on this day Captain the Richland County Sheriff's Office just caught a new case a missing person's case of
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course they did all of the usual procedures checking with family friends people at her work no one seemed to know
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where gaitha was Nor where she could be but gaitha wasn't the only thing missing
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here we also have her 1990 Dodge van that was missing as well reports have people seeing gai last scene leaving her
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work on the 15th that Monday and this is listed between 6:45 p.m. and 700 p.m. so
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a rather precise time there however we'll Circle back back to these reports later because as you and I always say
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captain the devil is in the details so one important clue here Captain is that Gaya told more than one person that day
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that she had a business meeting that evening however she did not say where this business meeting would take place
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or with whom the business meeting was for right now at the time before she went missing no one thought anything of
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this right she's a successful business owner and regularly had business meetings both via phone in person and
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frankly even sometimes on location after all she is running a medical supply business and thus she has suppliers to
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work with as well she's essentially the middleman here well let's unpack this for a second cuz like you said it's it's
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very uncommon for her not to show up for work it's very very uncommon for her not
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to show up at home after work but if she's leaving work at almost 700 p.m. and she's stating to employees and other
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co-workers I I have a meeting later a business meeting this means it's it's probably pretty common for her to get
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back pretty late and I know a lot of times in those situations the spouse of the person that
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works really late will just stay on their own routine they don't wait for the person to get home they
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just go to bed when they go to bed when you're a business owner when you're a manager when you're high up typically
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there is no set hours for your job now your routine may fall mostly within the hours of 9 a to 5:00 P PM however as you
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can see here she's the owner operator it's very likely she's often going in early to be the first one there and
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she's often probably the last one or one of the last ones to leave that day so you're exactly right there Captain
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probably not a probably not super easy to pin down her routine her routine was probably more dictated by the business
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itself right and really what we're dealing with here in the early stages of this investigation for Richland County
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and their sheriff's deputies and their investigation would be now we're starting to talk about a window between
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roughly 700 p.m. and then whatever time she was due to be home that night or whatever time her husband would have
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expected or to come home again that might not be such a hard and fast timeline or deadline but then we have
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the fact that we know she doesn't arrive at work the next morning so we've already started our timeline of the
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question the time that's in question here for this missing person's case well I just want to point this out because I
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was in a relation ship for a long time with somebody that worked in the medical field and if she was scheduled to get
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home late I just went to bed so I couldn't tell you what time she got home and then sometimes if she had an early
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shift she was up and out the door before I woke up so in this scenario if that's
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something that's common for gai then in her family there might not be any alarms
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or red flags going off for them at this time period right there were no red flags going off for the people at her
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work based off of saying that she was going to have this business meeting but of course that's going to change when
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she doesn't show up the next day or as the days go by that she is missing right and so everything seems pretty routine
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until she doesn't come home that night and then underline that and circle it when she doesn't show up for work the
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next morning now after she is reported missing to authorities of course this business meeting takes on a whole new
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level of Suspicion and I'm sure that the people closest to her were thinking very
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hard are am I sure she didn't say who she was meeting am I sure she didn't say where it would be or even what time this
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meeting was to start what's weird to have a meeting start obviously she's leaving work a quarter till 7 7 p.m.
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so unless she's going straight there a meeting starting on a Monday night at 7:30 p.m. maybe 8:00 p.m. that seems
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pretty late to me I agree and but I think a lot of this has to do with um the type of business that you may be in
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you know when I was working in aviation a lot of the people that I worked with were at other locations here in central
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Ohio and so it wouldn't be terribly uncommon with us having very busy daytime schedules to right mix a little
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bit of business with pleasure right and say hey you want to meet at this roosters or at this restaurant that is
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halfway between your house and my house or the hanger and where I'm currently my
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office why don't we meet there right after work and we can have a little bit of good food and a couple drinks and and
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figure everything out while we're there this is going to take us to Wednesday February 17th so 2 days after went
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missing yeah gai's 1990 Dodge van is located by Richland County sheriff's deputies and the report is this on
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February 17th Richland County sheriff's deputies found gai's 1990 Dodge van in the parking lot of the Best Western
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motel on lver road it was covered with snow so deputies believed the vehicle was there before the previous night's
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storm so this is interesting and this is going to help to fill in a big blank on
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our timeline here our time in question so they find this vehicle the distance from her home she
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lives on Impala Drive in Mansfield Laver road is in Mansfield as well there are three General routes that one would take
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if they were to go from where her vehicle was found to her home or from her home to where her vehicle was found
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those routes range in distance from 1.3 mil to 2 miles a 3 to 4minute drive time
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so she's missing and this whole time that she's missing her vehicle was very nearby the
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statement about the snow is very interesting to me as well you know how does this affect our timeline here well
00:20:52
yes we find the vehicle within 48 Hours of when she's last reported to have been
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seen or heard from right but now we have the deputies that are saying look you know this is February it didn't it it's
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covered in snow this vehicle and it didn't snow before the 16th so this vehicle got here was parked
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here and and and sat here during that snowstorm whatever happened to gai if the vehicle is involved in her going
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miss well the vehicle might be able to supply you with some Clues one but it's already
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supplied you with shortening the window of time on when it is that something could have happened to her and just so
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we're clear she goes missing on that Monday and what law enforcement is saying is that that vehicle her van was
00:21:50
in that location by that Monday night or at least by that Tuesday morning right again shortening the window here now
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that location is of some interest to me and that is because they state that it's
00:22:05
in the parking lot of a Best Western motel now you go okay well did she drive this
00:22:12
vehicle there or did somebody place this vehicle there after something happened to her that we cannot say based off of
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what the Richland County Sheriff's office has said about the vehicle they cannot say either well I'm guessing
00:22:26
because it's 1993 ree that Best Western doesn't have a lot of CCTV footage yeah that's the thing here with this case if
00:22:35
we would have had some surveillance if we would have had some witness statements that had seen G or interacted
00:22:42
with g at this location that would really help out the investigation however the van itself per the Richland
00:22:52
County Sheriff's Office does not yield any clues we have this Best Western motel but attached to the motel is a bar
00:23:02
as well so it's not it's not easy to look at the situation and go okay well she was going to the hotel and something
00:23:10
happened or she was going to this bar and something happened the problem with both of these businesses there and where
00:23:17
her vehicle is found in the parking lot it's basically a shared parking lot so while the newspaper May say It's the
00:23:24
Best Western motel's parking lot it's a shared parking lot in fact those two buildings and and uh businesses under
00:23:31
different names are still there to this day well let's unpack this a a little bit though cuz obviously you'd meet some
00:23:37
of your clients at your place of work and some of the clients that you would meet I would guessing at hospitals or
00:23:46
the ER or doctor's offices things like that it's not out of the realm of possibility that there's a traveling
00:23:53
salesman and he's in town and she says well where did you stay he says well I was at the Best Western oh I'll just
00:24:00
meet you at the bar in restaurant with inside the Best Western you're right and it is a bar and restaurant and in fact
00:24:06
the weird thing is today 30 years later it's no longer a Best Western but a rather sey roach motel it's a it's a
00:24:17
pretty uh best roach Western there you go it's not a Best Western anymore but whatever name it's under now I I'm not
00:24:24
going to give any worse Western great Yelp reviews for people to go and stay there however the bar and restaurant to
00:24:32
this day still receives very good reviews and they still serve food wouldn't be out of the question that she
00:24:39
would be meeting somebody there and maybe want to grab a bite to eat or a drink or two while they're meeting them
00:24:45
the problem is and you all can picture this it's very much like you would see on an old 90s episode of Law and Order
00:24:54
when the detectives go out of course they're going to go into the bar they're going to go into the motel they're going
00:24:59
to ask the employees especially the ones that were working there on the evening of the 15th and probably everybody
00:25:06
that's working there on the 16th as well because we don't have an exact minute when that van arrived there did did you
00:25:13
see gai did she meet anybody uh was there anybody that was here that said that they were meeting a woman that owns
00:25:20
a medical supply business the problem was especially with the bar and the bartender
00:25:28
was you weren't getting a definitive answer you were you weren't getting a oh I can confirm that I've seen her but you
00:25:35
also weren't getting I can deny that I saw her what the answers you're getting is it's busy we get a lot of people that
00:25:43
come in and out and I can't say for certain if I saw her or not well on those locations are so much harder for
00:25:51
the staff to remember faces because those types of locations don't have a ton of repeat customers they don't have
00:25:59
a ton of regulars so unfortunately here Captain this is where and how this investigation would sit for a good deal
00:26:07
of time we have a missing woman that everyone is saying no way would she leave her children she's a wonderful
00:26:13
mother and no way would she leave her business her business was her pride and joy it was her life's work so we have
00:26:22
this missing person and then we find her vehicle less than 48 hours after it's reported that she's last seen the van
00:26:32
found abandon in this parking lot then we have the Richland County Sheriff's Office saying that this van yielded no
00:26:39
clues as to where gai could be or what could have happened to [Music] her this show is sponsored by better help do
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[Music] that all right we are back cheers mates hotel motel holiday in roach motel
00:29:22
best to you Best Wester yeah I not a sponsor I want to give a little mention here a dear friend of mine and a dear
00:29:30
friend of my family's Rebecca Mather Eckerman passed away late last month I knew Becky for 20 years she was a dear
00:29:38
friend and she listened to our little garage show here and so do a lot of her loved ones and friends so I just want
00:29:46
everyone to know that we are thinking of you all and we'll pour a little out for
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Becky to the good times cheers cheers to Becky yep and cheers to you captain now
00:29:56
before the the break we were saying that after finding gai's van less than 48 hours after she is missing this case
00:30:05
sits stagnant for several weeks this is until her body was located and the report reads the body of a woman was
00:30:17
found in Delaware County has been identified as the missing woman that was reported missing last month according to
00:30:27
Richland County Sheriff's Office Delaware County sheriff's deputies found the body of gai Bowman age
00:30:34
37 the positive identification came after comparisons of dental records deputies said according to a spokesman
00:30:42
for the Delaware Sheriff's Department the county owned gravel storage facility where the body was found is on Dunham
00:30:51
road an old North South County Line Road that dead ended when alen Creek Reservoir was put in the facility is
00:30:59
west of Interstate 71 deputies had been working with other law enforcement agencies on the missing
00:31:06
person's case in fact another body was found recently in Franklin County which turned out to not be Bowman they
00:31:13
suspected it may have been her but it turned out to not be her an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of
00:31:20
death so when she's found it's almost exactly one month's time after she goes missing mhm so she goes missing last
00:31:32
reported to be seen on the 15th reported missing on the 16th van found on the 17th and then almost exactly one month
00:31:39
later she's found in Delaware County and a little more detail here we get some more details that come out we're going
00:31:48
to be able to start to fill in some of the blanks here because now we have a month's worth of time to sort out and
00:31:55
figure out what happened to this woman there are a lot of strange things in this timeline once we start to piece it
00:32:03
together and certainly what will be some obvious red flags in this timeline now we also have a better description of
00:32:12
where the body was found and how the body was found and this comes from the Ohio Attorney General's office So based
00:32:19
off of the article that we read previously it makes it sound like the Delaware County sheriff's deputies
00:32:25
happen to be out in this area spotted her body well that might be the short version of it but the real version of it
00:32:33
is that an employee of the Delaware County Engineers office found human remains on March 16th 1993 in a gravel
00:32:43
pile located at the property on Dunham road which is south of Route 37 East the body was located on a gravel pile
00:32:54
covered in trash and partially closed and then we know that using dental records the remains were later
00:33:02
identified as gai of Bowman this is a property that is owned and operated by the county of Delaware we see
00:33:13
these properties in all of our counties out there right you you have these properties a lot of them are tucked away
00:33:20
sometimes out in the middle of nowhere if you live in a county that has extra space if you want to call it that but
00:33:27
they can be tucked away in the middle of nowhere sometimes and it's often where you will see the County houses it's salt
00:33:34
storage for snow removal right or in this case gravel and such so this would be an area that is owned and operated by
00:33:43
the Delaware County here in Ohio and they will use this property there's probably not a lot of employees in and
00:33:51
out of this property but you're going to use this facility more as a storage an open air storage facility if you will
00:34:01
and this is going to be so you can maintain your roads and and things of that nature so an employee stumbles upon
00:34:08
this body these human remains and then phones it into Delaware County they come out and they check out the area and they
00:34:16
find our victim here partially clothed covered in trash and then to complicate matters more between the time she went
00:34:25
missing in mid-February to when she's found in midm March it was rather cold that year it was a cold winter in 1993
00:34:33
and it snowed off and on quite a bit you may have had employees coming and going
00:34:39
from time to time during that course of the month and simply not noticing that the remains were there in
00:34:50
fact we have deputies that that later state that when they arrived on the scene the body still was part ially
00:34:57
covered in snow and they believed based off of the weather from that winter that
00:35:02
at one time she likely was completely covered in snow yeah this case is so complex because we know certain things
00:35:08
that she left between 6:45 and 7 but who was she supposed to meet was she supposed to meet an individual was she
00:35:17
supposed to meet a group of people where were they supposed to meet at their work
00:35:21
or at this Best Western would you eat them in a box would you eat him with a fox so we know she went missing but we
00:35:30
find her car and we don't know if that's a crime scene cuz they don't search that
00:35:35
vehicle in depth but now we find her body but this seems like a dump site this doesn't seem like where the murder
00:35:43
actually took place well we do get some autopsy information which can help us out here a little bit here Captain so
00:35:52
what we have is it reads officials may not know how Mansfield bus businesswoman gai Bowman died but they have agreed to
00:36:00
treat her death as a homicide gai Bowman a 37-year-old mother of two was found partially concealed under a pile of
00:36:09
household trash in Delaware County her van was found two days later after she went missing in the parking lot of a
00:36:19
Mansfield Best Western motel Witnesses said the van had been there since the morning of February 16th she was last
00:36:27
seen wearing cream colored slacks and a blouse and a blazer a joint investigation team from Delaware and
00:36:34
Richland counties is appealing for information from anyone who may have seen gayab Bowman after 645 p.m. on
00:36:44
February 15th gaitha Bowman's frozen body was found behind a pile of gravel in a Delaware County owned gravel
00:36:53
storage area near Alum Creek Lake she she apparently had changed clothes at least once since she
00:37:01
disappeared this according to a Delaware County Sheriff's Office investigator they go on to say that she was found
00:37:08
wearing a white skirt and a sweater G The Bowman had not sustained any visible injury and was wearing all
00:37:17
of her jewelry the household trash that covered her body included advertisements from a Mansfield
00:37:26
newspaper paper indicating that she may not have been killed at the site Delaware County coroner said the extreme
00:37:35
cold prevented any accurate estimation of the time of death or the date of Gab Bowman's death he goes on to say quote
00:37:45
she could have been there since the day she went missing or she could have died last week as cold as it was it was like
00:37:55
being in a freezer and then of course at the time what they're saying here Captain is that they could not determine
00:38:02
the cause of death but that would be determined later hopefully by the forensic Laboratories at the Ohio State
00:38:12
University and they go on to say that it's probably going to take us about a month or so to get those results back
00:38:19
but interesting here to hear that the determination immediately was to treat this as a homicide for those of you that
00:38:29
are new to True Crime or new to this show this is something that's pretty obvious to the captain and I because
00:38:36
what you see here is something we've seen in many other cases gai regardless of what happened to her she didn't take
00:38:45
her own life and then then conceal her own body right we have investigators and detectives that are on scene they are
00:38:52
witnessing the scene they have found her they're going through through the scene
00:38:57
and one thing that they have decided on immediately is someone went to the trouble to try to conceal her and like
00:39:07
the coroner said given the Frozen temperatures at the time it's difficult to pin down the time of death because
00:39:16
it's like she was stored in a freezer for all of this time she could have died the day she went missing she could have
00:39:21
died last week what we can discern at the crime scene is that someone went to the trouble to try to conceal her
00:39:29
therefore we know that we are currently dealing with a homicide and we are going
00:39:33
to work this as a homicide investigation starting now and do that we're not just
00:39:40
going to sit on our hands and wait for the Ohio State University to come back with their information to tell us yes in
00:39:47
fact this is how she was killed we can start working this immediately as a homicide so we just went from a missing
00:39:53
person's case to a homicide invest investigation again this case is complicated because she's telling people
00:40:00
at work I have a business meeting later we don't know with who or where but it's
00:40:07
also unclear is it actually a business meeting or was it a personal meeting that she was just telling people that it
00:40:14
was a business meeting later as promised those results from the Ohio State University do come back and are
00:40:22
publicized and it's announced that the cause of death was detered gaitha Bowman age 37 was strangled to
00:40:29
death and then her body was discarded there amongst trash in Delaware County again someone tried to conceal the body
00:40:38
maybe not for good but maybe just long enough to get away with her murder right everyone I'm certain picked up on this
00:40:45
the complicating Factor here too is putting together that definitive timeline based on the the freezing
00:40:52
conditions weather conditions during the course of that month that she was missing the important thing here though
00:40:59
you know they say in real estate location location location well it works the same way for homicide investigations
00:41:06
as well location location location and here we have three counties to deal with we have Richland County and we have
00:41:14
Delaware County which it's stated is they're working together in a joint homicide investigation for gab Bowman
00:41:22
but between the counties of Richland and Delaware County we have Marrow County Interstate 71 South runs through
00:41:32
Richland through marrow through Delaware and down into Franklin County where we have Columbus and it continues on the
00:41:38
thing that is so important here we don't know where she went missing or the details of how she went
00:41:47
missing just yet right but what we do know is this you can look at her business you can look at her home and
00:41:56
you can look at the location where her van was found all three are within minutes within just a mile or two of
00:42:07
getting on 71 now if you go 71 Interstate 71 South you can take that directly down to Route
00:42:16
37 and you make a right and back then in 1993 Dunham road the location of where the body was later found
00:42:26
at this property owned and operated by Delaware County it is still to this day a dead
00:42:32
end road but back then there was there was not a whole lot going on on this road uh there might have been a couple
00:42:39
of houses and but primarily you have this space that is owned by Delaware County
00:42:46
back there what I'm getting at Captain is if somebody was looking to conceal the body which we know that they were
00:42:54
based off of this trash that was found in the manner that the body was found somebody 100% was attempting to conceal
00:43:02
the body there but not just that conceal the body from where she lived and worked
00:43:08
in Richland County it would be so easy that if somebody did something terrible to this wonderful woman to hop on 71
00:43:18
South and it's almost exactly 50 miles it's about 48 mil of freeway but you only you get about you get about 2
00:43:28
miles on each end okay so 44 miles 44 to 46 miles of freeway and you get about two miles on each end to get to 71 and
00:43:37
then once you get off of 71 it looks to me like somebody did something to Gaya and decided I've got to conceal this
00:43:47
body I want to I want to take this body I want to get her out of this County I'm
00:43:52
gonna hop on 71 South and I'm going to go right to where I think I'm in the country when I where I think I'm out in
00:44:00
the middle of nowhere if you would have hopped off a 71 on to 37 36 back then and made a right within less than a mile
00:44:10
you are away from all of the businesses you are in you're in the pitch black if it's
00:44:15
nighttime and you see this gravel pile and you go that's the spot that I'm going to conceal her body the
00:44:22
interesting thing here too is remember the report the trash that is found covering her
00:44:31
body has advertisements and addresses this is Mansfield trash her home her business where her
00:44:39
vehicle is found is all in Mansfield Ohio it's starting to shape up here that something terrible happened to gai The
00:44:46
Bowman in Mansfield Ohio and somebody decided you know what either I'm grabbing some trash on my way out to
00:44:52
help me conceal this body or or had this stuff with them already drove down 71 about 50 miles took her to the middle
00:45:04
of nowhere or what they thought was the middle of nowhere and covered her in this trash
00:45:10
and now detectives have this information and this evidence that says somebody brought not just the body with them but
00:45:17
bought the brought this trash with them to this location as well we know the location of where her car was found her
00:45:24
her vehicle was found and so if she was meeting somebody at that Best Western then maybe that person was traveling
00:45:30
maybe that person lived in Columbus or maybe that person used the Columbus airport so like you said to head back
00:45:39
down 71 it could also have just been I'm going to take the body with me and look
00:45:45
for a location dump the body and then head out on you know maybe head back to Columbus
00:45:52
or maybe head back to Columbus to jump on a plane another thing that's very interesting here Captain is the
00:46:00
information that trickles out in gai's case and it's again filling in some of the blanks of this timeline and this
00:46:11
information does not become public until after her body was found but this is really interesting so in the same report
00:46:21
that reports her body found they go on to say that she worked in owned this Premed that she was last seen leaving
00:46:29
work on February 15th about 700 p.m. this according to the Sheriff's records but also in this
00:46:36
report it says she has been missing since February 15th when her ex-husband told authorities she did not
00:46:45
pick up her two children at the babysitter after work okay so let's examine that little nugget of evidence
00:46:56
here and I say evidence because it's not just another marker in our timeline there's something going on here there's
00:47:02
some big red flag that we need to examine couple things she doesn't come home that night according to all of the
00:47:12
records and the stories right she doesn't show up for work the next morning she's not reported missing by
00:47:19
her children her husband her work she's reported missing by her ex-husband and remember she has one child with him and
00:47:31
one child with her new husband and the way the reports go is that it was their regular
00:47:38
babysitter he's reporting her missing because she failed to pick up the children from their regular babysitter
00:47:46
on that Monday night right so what happens we don't have to have the details here to know what happened
00:47:54
anybody with children or B babysitters know exactly what happened it gets later it gets later it gets later gai's not
00:48:01
showing up it's 1993 babysitter starts to call the other parents calls dad of the son which is her ex-husband calls
00:48:12
dad of the daughter which is her current husband which of these two report gai missing the
00:48:20
ex-husband he seems to care a whole heck of a lot more that gai is missing and never showed up to pick up these kids on
00:48:28
that Monday night yeah I mean this whole case is is complex and it's confusing people's actions are confusing
00:48:37
her current husband's actions are definitely confusing things seem out of alignment things seem fishy from my
00:48:47
understanding here Captain the way that this went down is babysitter contacts at the very least the
00:48:54
ex-husband and says gai never showed up to pick up the kids now we can make the assumption that
00:49:02
the babysitter also contacted the father of the daughter which is gai's current husband right
00:49:11
what ends up happening is the children stay the night at the babysitter's home and then the ex husband is even
00:49:21
more concerned when he wakes up the next morning and is notified once Again by the babysitter she never came and picked
00:49:28
up the kiss and that's when he calls it into Richland County and says look I think gate The Bowman my ex-wife might
00:49:37
be missing she was supposed to pick up the kids last night from the babysitter and she never
00:49:43
arrived and you know how these stories go it's very likely that when that first call or the first couple calls are made
00:49:51
that nobody's ready to sound the alarm just yet you know it's well just give it another half hour give it another hour
00:49:58
maybe she'll show up and this was the time before cell phon so it's not like they're expecting to be able to get a
00:50:04
hold of gaitha at a moment's notice so it's not until that following morning that we have somebody raising the red
00:50:13
flag and the person raising the red flag here is gaitha Bowman's ex-husband well
00:50:17
let's unpack this just a little bit because if I'm at work I'm the boss I'm telling my employees my co-workers I I
00:50:26
have a meeting tonight it doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense that she would be the one to go pick up both
00:50:36
children Drive the one child to the ex's house and then take the other child back
00:50:42
to her house if she has this meeting then her husband should be home at least to watch their daughter she's only 3
00:50:50
years old even if you said to me well she's going to drop off her son and then take her daughter to the meeting
00:50:56
that doesn't make any sense to me and it it seems like there's a lot of dawn activities quote unquote Dawn activities
00:51:04
going on with her current husband yeah that I can't speak to any of that because the situation is she's at work
00:51:13
the kids are at the babysitter's house there's no indication that her son was to go to the biological father's house
00:51:19
that night it was simply right good point he could have been coming back home with her right yeah they no they I
00:51:25
mean they had shared custody that it was a Monday night the kids were going to stay at gai's house so she went to work
00:51:31
she had this meeting after work after the meeting she was going to pick up the kids and she was going to come
00:51:38
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Badges

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  • 80
    Most intense
  • 70
    Most shocking
  • 70
    Best concept / idea
  • 70
    Most unpredictable

Episode Highlights

  • Gaitha Bowman's Disappearance
    Gaitha Bowman, a well-liked business owner, went missing on February 15, 1993. Her case remains unsolved.
    “There will be no end, said Dorothy Leighton.”
    @ 03m 30s
    November 16, 2023
  • A Mother's Plea for Justice
    Dorothy Leighton, Gaitha's mother, calls for truth and justice in her daughter's case, emphasizing the need for witnesses to come forward.
    “It's time for those to come forward and tell the truth.”
    @ 05m 38s
    November 16, 2023
  • The Search for Gaitha's Van
    On February 17, 1993, Gaitha's van was found in a nearby parking lot, raising questions about her disappearance.
    “Her vehicle was very nearby.”
    @ 20m 46s
    November 16, 2023
  • Body Found
    Gai's body is discovered almost a month after she went missing, leading to a homicide investigation.
    “Her body was found partially concealed under a pile of household trash.”
    @ 36m 04s
    November 16, 2023
  • Gai Bowman's Disappearance
    Gai Bowman, a 37-year-old mother, goes missing after leaving work on February 15.
    “She was last seen wearing cream colored slacks and a blouse.”
    @ 36m 27s
    November 16, 2023
  • Cause of Death Determined
    The cause of Gai's death is ruled as strangulation, marking a significant turn in the investigation.
    “Gai Bowman was strangled to death and discarded amongst trash.”
    @ 40m 27s
    November 16, 2023
  • Confusing Circumstances
    The timeline of events surrounding Gai's disappearance is complex and puzzling.
    “Things seem out of alignment.”
    @ 48m 40s
    November 16, 2023
  • A Missing Person's Case
    Gai was supposed to pick up her kids but never arrived, raising concerns.
    “I think Gai might be missing.”
    @ 49m 37s
    November 16, 2023
  • Raising the Alarm
    It wasn't until the next morning that Gai's ex-husband reported her missing.
    “Somebody raising the red flag here is Gai's ex-husband.”
    @ 50m 11s
    November 16, 2023

Episode Quotes

  • She had a heart as big as all outdoors.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646
  • It's time for those to come forward and tell the truth.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646
  • No way would she leave her children.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646
  • She was a wonderful mother and no way would she leave her business.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646
  • It was like being in a freezer.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646
  • Things seem fishy from my understanding here.
    Gatha Bowman /// Part 1 /// 646

Key Moments

  • Vehicle Found19:34
  • Investigation Begins26:04
  • Body Discovered30:17
  • Homicide Investigation39:52
  • Missing Children48:20
  • Complex Case48:31
  • Unusual Activities51:02
  • Final Thoughts51:52

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown