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