When Jerry Bowen asked Brenda Breckenridge to marry him in 1976, she eagerly said yes. When he asked her for a divorce nineteen years later, a despondent Brenda, knowing the marriage had disintegrated, again said yes.

Two years later, Jerry asked Brenda to take him back, but this time her answer was no. Four days later Brenda disappeared. Two months later, her body was found floating in a river, a few miles from the couple’s rural Westover, Alabama, home, approximately twenty miles southeast of Birmingham.

Jerry Bowen was convicted of his wife’s murder. On the day he was to be sentenced, however, Bowen was a no-show in court. He stayed on the lam for over four years and went to extraordinary lengths to conceal his identity, but in the end, he could not outwit the forensics.

Jerry and Brenda Bowen

Most of Jerry and Brenda Bowen’s nineteen-year-marriage was happy. They had two teenage children, a son Jason and a daughter Ginjer. The couple were well-off financially; Jerry worked as a contactor and property appraiser while Brenda worked as a real estate agent and as a sales representative at the Brown Lumber company in Columbiana, fifteen miles south of Westover.

By 1995, however, the Bowen’s marriage was falling apart. The forty-two-year-old Brenda learned her forty-eight-year-old husband was having an affair with a much younger woman named Judy Davidson. It was the quintessential midlife crisis, and Jerry decided to quit on the marriage. He asked Brenda for a divorce; though saddened, she agreed. The proceedings were finalized just over a year later.

The ending of the marriage was amicable by both parties as Jerry agreed to give most of the couple’s joint assets to Brenda. They were still on good terms, so much so that they agreed to a unique living arrangement: Brenda would live in the main house while Jerry took residence in the smaller guest house on the former couple’s property.

The Marriage Dissolves

For six months, the arrangement worked out well. But then Jerry realized Judy may not have been attracted to him for his looks or charisma. He soon wished he had not been so generous in the divorce settlement as he was in serious financial trouble.

Just as quickly as Jerry Bowen had squandered his marriage, his mistress had squandered his money.

Jerry Is In Financial Peril

Brenda, conversely, had no financial trouble as her real estate business continued to thrive. In desperation, Jerry turned for help to the woman he had turned away.

On January 24, 1997, Jerry asked Brenda that they re-marry to give him some financial relief. Brenda told her parents of the request. Her decision is not known for sure, but it most likely was no.

No Bailout

Four days later, two of Brenda’s friends came to her home, concerned that she had missed her regular prayer meeting and had not picked up her mother, Joyce Breckenridge, for a doctor’s appointment. Not finding her there, they called the police.

Shelby County Deputies found some of Brenda’s clothes neatly folded and lying on her bed, her jewelry lying neatly on her dresser, and her curling iron turned on in the bathroom.

That evening, Brenda’s car, a 1991 Honda Accord, was found submerged in mud in a wooded area off Shelby County Road 51, approximately five miles from her home. Inside were her cell phone, check book, and purse, containing money and her identification.

Police were struck that the driver’s seat was pushed all the way to the back, not situated for the five-foot-two-inch tall Brenda to drive.

No Trace Of Brenda

The car seat’s position would have been more suitable for the six-foot-one-inch tall Jerry. When questioned by police, he showed no concern for Brenda’s well-being and gave evasive answers to detectives’ questions. The interview occurred in the early morning hours, and he fell asleep at one point.

Police were becoming suspicious of Jerry, but he was released because nothing linked him to his former wife’s disappearance.

Suspicion Falls On Jerry

Nearly two months later, on March 29, three fisherman near Childersburg, approximately ten miles southeast of Brenda’s home, saw a body floating along the banks of the Coosa River. It was weighed down with logging chains, bound with a telephone cord, and tied inside a sheet.

The Shelby County Coroner identified the remains as those of Brenda Bowen. She was suspected to have either drowned or been strangled to death, but her body was too decomposed for the cause of death to be definitively determined.

Brenda’s Body Is Found

A green bed sheet with a nylon rope tied around it covered Brenda’s body. The bed sheet was confirmed as having come from the Bowen home.

The rope around the sheet was tied with two specific knots, a bowline and a slip, and the ends of the rope were burnt. Jason Bowen recognized the unusual knots as the pattern used by his dad, an avid outdoorsman.  In addition, Jason said when his dad cut nylon rope, he always burned the ends.

Distinctive Knots

Jerry Bowen had no alibi for the day Brenda disappeared. Although the case against him was entirely circumstantial and prosecutors had neither a definitive cause of death nor a murder weapon, he was charged with the murder of his former wife in January 1998.

On April 28, 2000, Jerry Bowen was convicted of Brenda’s murder. To everyone’s surprise, he was granted him bail in the amount of $150,000 while awaiting sentencing. Friends and family helped him raise the money.

Bowen Convicted  

On the day of his sentencing, June 20, Bowen mailed a letter to his sister, Peggy Vance. It read, in part: “This may by a dumb move on my part, sis [sic], but I don’t feel I should serve time for a crime that I didn’t commit. Therefore, I’m running.” He also wrote he feared he would not survive being in prison.

Police believed Bowen had fled six days before his scheduled sentencing. That was the last day Peggy had seen her brother, who told her he was he was going camping at Wind Creek State Park.

Peggy Vance

Jerry Bowen’s Sister

On April 28, 2000, Jerry Bowen was convicted of the murder of his former wife and sentenced in absentia to life in prison. Upon arrival at his home, police found both of his cars in the driveway.

Somewhat surprisingly, a search of the home found all of Bowen’s belongings inside. More surprisingly, and disturbingly, thousands of violent and sadistic pornographic photographs were found stored on his computer. Among the images were those of cannibalism and of women being tied-up, shackled, and tortured. Bowen seemed to have a particular fascination with naked pregnant women.

The disturbing images found on his computer showed that Bowen had disgusting fetishes, but they failed to provide any clues to his whereabouts.

Unusual Fetishes

Jerry Bowen stayed off the radar for over four years before the public exposure of his crime and flight led to his capture.

Bowen’s Wanted Poster

The fugitive had been profiled on Unsolved Mysteries twice, America’s Most Wanted three times, and on several other national crime shows.

Following the Unsolved Mysteries re-broadcast of Bowen’s case on December 21, 2004, a viewer from North Charleston, South Carolina, believed she recognized the Alabama fugitive. A man she knew as Steven Starbuck (some sources say Starbuck”s”) had been dating her sister on-and-off for the previous three years.

 

Profiled Nationally

Police went to the man’s home. He resembled Jerry Bowen but produced a birth certificate and driver’s license identifying him as Steven Starbuck. He agreed to come to the police department for questioning.

Despite the documentations, police were confident they had their man. They were surprised when his fingerprints did not appear to match Jerry Bowen’s. Upon closer examination, a crime scene technician saw that although the tips of the fingers were not a match, the ridges above the first crease on the fingers were a match.

More extensive fingerprint tests were conducted, confirming Steven Starbuck was Jerry Bowen. Bowen confessed his identity and told police he had purposefully poured acid on his hands in an effort to alter his fingerprints.

Bowen also told of his life on the run: He initially fled to Reno, Nevada, where he lived for a couple of years before briefly relocating to Salt Lake City, Utah. In both cities, he worked in construction doing drywall and had stolen the identities of homeless men after befriending them.

In Reno, Bowen assumed the identity of a man named Richard Bassett and successfully applied for a driver’s license in Salt Lake City under that name. Bassett had told him he owed over $19,000 in back child support; Bowen, after stealing Bassett’s identity, paid the debt to keep people from looking for the real Richard Bassett.

Two years later, after learning the real Richard Bassett had died, Bowen stole the identity of Stephen Starbuck, a Salt Lake City homeless man. He then headed east, where he obtained a driver’s license in South Carolina under that name.

While in the Palmetto state, Bowen also said he had twice been stopped for speeding; each time he provided the license with the name Stephen Starbuck to the officer. His true identity was not learned either time.

Previous Close Calls

Jerry Bowen was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his former wife Brenda. In South Carolina, he was also convicted of illegal weapons possession and identity theft.

In a 2010 interview for the show I (Almost) Got Away with It, Bowen again professed his innocence. He said he fled because he was told police were going to kill him. His claims of innocence are supported by several family members and friends who stress that no physical or forensic evidence linked him to Brenda’s murder; he was convicted entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Jerry Bowen’s supporters believe a man named Clark Morris murdered Brenda. In October, 1997, seven months after Brenda’s body was found, Morris, imprisoned in Oregon at the time but who was living in Alabama when Brenda disappeared, confessed to killing her. Investigators, however, said his version of how Brenda was killed did not match the facts and he was cleared as a suspect.

Bowen’s son Jason, who died in 2015, was not among those who believed his father is innocent. His sister, Ginjer, also believes her father is guilty.

Bowen Maintains His Innocence

Jerry Bowen was denied parole on December 1, 2019.  He will next be eligible in March 2026.

Denied Parole

Now seventy-six-years-old, Jerry Bowen is imprisoned at the Limestone Correctional Center in Harvest, Alabama.

Bowen Behind Bars

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/64345059/brenda-joyce-bowen#

 

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• Anniston (AL) Star
• Birmingham (AL) Post-Herald
• Post and Courier, Charleston, South Carolina
• Shelby County (Alabama) Reporter
• Unsolved Mysteries
• WIS News Channel 10 NBC Affiliate Columbia, South Carolina