Bowman v. State
| Decision Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2020-KA-01371-COA |
| Parties | CHARLES EUGENE BOWMAN APPELLANT v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY ALLISON ELIZABETH HORNE
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: HALDON J. KITTRELL
BEFORE CARLTON, P.J., GREENLEE AND McCARTY, JJ.
¶1. Following a jury trial in Marion County Circuit Court,[1] Charles Bowman was convicted of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence based upon the death of his wife, Kathleen Bowman, whose burned remains were found on the Bowmans' property in rural Pearl River County. The trial court sentenced Bowman to forty years for the second-degree murder conviction, with ten years suspended and thirty years to serve in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), and ten years of post-release supervision. Regarding the tampering-with-evidence conviction, the trial court sentenced Bowman to serve ten years in the custody of the MDOC, with that sentence ordered to run consecutively to the sentence for the second-degree murder conviction.
¶2. On appeal, Bowman asserts that the trial court erred (1) in allowing the chief deputy medical examiner to testify about her final report determining the victim's manner and cause of death when the autopsy and an initial report[2] had been prepared by a medical examiner who was no longer at the Mississippi Crime Laboratory; (2) in denying Bowman's motions to suppress evidence collected in Mississippi and Utah; (3) in allowing evidence of flight and then giving a flight instruction to the jury; (4) in giving "confusing" jury instructions regarding the standard of proof in this circumstantial evidence case; and (5) in denying his motion for a new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict because the verdicts were against the overwhelming weight of the evidence, or the evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts. For the reasons addressed below, we affirm Bowman's convictions and sentences.
¶3. In September 2019, a Pearl River County grand jury indicted Charles Eugene Bowman for the first-degree murder of his wife, Kathleen Bowman, under Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-3-19(1)(a) (Supp. 2017), and for tampering with evidence under Mississippi Code Annotation section 97-9-125 (Supp. 2017) for the burning and removal of her remains.
Bowman pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial.
¶4. Early in the proceedings, Bowman filed a motion to transfer venue, which the trial court granted and transferred the venue for trial to Marion County. A number of pretrial motions were filed and will be summarized here and discussed in more detail below because they relate to issues Bowman raises on appeal. In December 2019, the defense moved to suppress evidence gathered by law enforcement in Mississippi and Utah. The trial court denied Bowman's motion with respect to the Mississippi evidence except for a videotaped jail interview of Bowman; Bowman's motion to suppress the Utah evidence was denied in full. In July 2020, the State moved for authority to present the testimony of medical examiner Dr. Staci Turner, who prepared the "Final Report of External Postmortem Examination" in this case. The defense objected to the motion and filed its own motion in limine to prevent Dr. Turner from testifying. The trial court granted the State's motion. About a month before the October 2020 trial, the defense moved to exclude references to "flight evidence" and to preclude the giving of any flight jury instruction. At that time, the trial court held its ruling in abeyance. The trial court later denied Bowman's motion, ruling that the State could refer to flight evidence and that the jury would be instructed accordingly.
¶5. The State presented twenty-two witnesses at trial, including several of Kathleen's family members (daughter Kirby Silas, son Patrick Held, and eldest brother Gerald Fabre) law enforcement involved in the welfare checks on Kathleen, the case investigation, the manhunt for Bowman and subsequent arrest in Utah, and the processing of evidence recovered in Mississippi and Utah; witnesses who had encounters with Bowman in Mississippi and Utah during the relevant time period; and a number of experts. Bowman testified in his own defense. He presented no other witnesses.
¶6. Kathleen and Bowman married in 2003 and moved to 68 Owl Hoot Road in Pearl River County in 2005. Kathleen's family members testified that throughout their relationship, although Kathleen was in poor health (suffering from arthritis, blood clots, depression at times, and obesity), Bowman never held a job "on any consistent basis and so the financial burden was on Kathleen, and Kathleen felt it a lot." Bowman and Kathleen's relationship was "rocky," they often fought, and, according to Gerald (her brother), Kathleen was isolated and "a lot of it [(her isolation)] had to do with [Bowman]." Gerald testified that between 2005 and 2009 Kathleen was prescribed and was taking "a considerable amount apparently of opioids" due to the chronic pain she was suffering from several surgeries. In 2009, Kathleen asked for his help to move her to Lafayette, Louisiana, to move in with their mother because she was leaving Bowman. And she did leave Bowman. While Kathleen was living with her mother in Lafayette, she "weaned herself off . . . the excessive medications that she had been taking, and began to be her old self," but "much to [Gerald's] dismay," Kathleen then moved back to Pearl River County with Bowman.
¶7. The Bowmans' home at Owl Hoot Road was in disrepair and the couple was planning to build a new house on the property. Kathleen had injured her knee while working at Lockheed Martin and was supposed to get a workers' compensation settlement in the spring of 2018, and, according to Gerald, Bowman claimed that he would soon be receiving money from a trust fund. With Kathleen's workers' compensation settlement and Bowman's trust fund, the couple planned to finance the new house.
¶8. On Mother's Day 2018, Bowman dropped Kathleen off at a family gathering at Gerald's home. Kathleen spent the day with her family and, by all accounts, Kathleen was happy. She was excitedly talking about her plans for the new house and how she would decorate it. But Gerald also testified that Kathleen confided in him that she was upset with Bowman and had given him an ultimatum on the Friday before he dropped her off on that Mother's Day. She told him that if he did not show proof of the trust fund, she would no longer tolerate the "façade," and their relationship would be over. Kathleen planned to give Bowman until Tuesday of the following week to produce the proof.[3] That Mother's Day weekend was the last time Kathleen's family saw her alive.
¶9. Kirby, Gerald, and Kathleen's son Patrick all testified that for several weeks, they texted Kathleen as they normally did, but they received delayed or unusual responses back from Kathleen. They could not get Kathleen on the phone, and she would not return their calls. Toward the end of June, Patrick was planning a birthday party for his daughter and invited Kathleen (the child's grandmother) to attend. He received no response. The next day, he received a strange text message from Kathleen's phone that she was too busy to come. He tried to call Kathleen several times without success. At that point, the family members talked to each other about what was happening, and they knew then that something was wrong.
¶10. On June 27, 2018, Kirby contacted the Pearl River County Sheriff's Office for a welfare check on Kathleen. Deputy[4] Jerry Fleming drove to the Bowman home. Bowman was in the front yard. He told Deputy Fleming that Kathleen was not at home but was on the coast. Deputy Fleming tried to call Kathleen but could not reach her.
¶11. Later that night, Deputy Fleming received a call from someone who identified herself as Kathleen Bowman. Deputy Fleming explained that her children were worried about her and asked her some identifying questions. He asked the woman for Kathleen's height, weight, eye color, driver's license number, and social security number. The woman hesitated for several seconds with every question but answered every question correctly except for the social security number. Deputy Fleming was unconvinced that he had spoken to Kathleen, so he sent two deputies to Kathleen and Bowman's house to make contact with her (the second welfare check).
¶12. Deputy Jeremy Quave of the Pearl River County Sheriff's Office testified that around 10:00 pm, he drove to Owl Hoot Road for another welfare check on Kathleen. Deputy Quave knocked on the front door, and no one answered. He glanced inside a white Nissan parked outside, and no one was in the car. He knocked on the back door of the house and still received no answer. He could hear a dog barking inside. He left.
¶13. Late that evening, a man named Antwanne Brazley called the Bay St Louis Police Department, reporting that he had been approached by an older white man in the parking lot of the Economy Inn in Bay St. Louis. Brazley testified at trial, and he said that the man was seeking a female to "do something sketchy for him." The man explained that he needed a woman who was "white or really sound[ed] white" to call the Pearl River Police Department and pose as his wife because her children had reported her missing. Brazley testified that he was with his girlfriend Alexandria Stevens at the motel and told the man that Alexandria could help. Alexandria testified at trial and said that Bowman asked...
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