Unsolved Lovers Lane Murders

[(AQ)]

Sept 27, 2018 2:09:17 GMT cleopatra said:

I came across this cold case brutal murder of a State Trooper who lived right nearby the Margaret/Hall murder site.

I have no idea if there is a connection. 

However, what I find extremely interesting about this trooper's murder is:

1)  he was killed right nearby where Margaret & Hall were murdered (scroll down to see the map I inserted below),

2)  he was stabbed 45 times,

3)  he was murdered just 2 days after Margaret and Hall were killed

          Aug. 17, 1984 Margaret/Hall

          Aug. 19, 1984 Trooper Johnny Bowman

4)  no apparent motive,

5)  overkill.

6)  killer never apprehended.

FBI and Local Law Enforcement Seek Information on Murder of Virginia State Trooper
FBI Offering $50,000 Reward for Information Leading to Arrest of Person(s) Responsible
The FBI Washington Field Office, along with the Virginia State Police, Manassas City Police Department, and the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney Prince William County, seek assistance from the public to identify an unknown individual or individuals responsible for the brutal murder of Virginia State Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman in Manassas, Virginia.
On August 19, 1984, at approximately 4:15 a.m., Virginia State Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman was brutally attacked and stabbed 45 times by an unknown assailant(s) while off-duty at his home located near Patterson Place in Manassas, Virginia. Trooper Bowman, who was unarmed at the time, engaged in a struggle with the individual(s) that awakened his 2-year-old daughter in the home. Trooper Bowman later succumbed to his injuries.
“For 34 years, Trooper Johnny Bowman’s daughter, parents, brother, friends, and colleagues have had to endure his loss and not knowing who was responsible for taking his life,” said Captain Greg Kincaid, Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Fairfax Field Office. “That’s why still today, the Virginia State Police and our partnering agencies remain determined to solve this homicide and bring Johnny’s killer to justice.”

Add in where Hall/ Margaret partied that night, where they lived .... seems Bowman saw, innocently, something he shouldn't have. 

[(AQ)]

Wondering if Bowman has any ties to the officers that investigated Margaret/Hall murders

[billthom56]

Sept 27, 2018 14:04:42 GMT (AQ) said:

Wondering if Bowman has any ties to the officers that investigated Margaret/Hall murders

AQ:

I thought Henrico PD took the lead in the Hall/Margaret murder investigation.

Thanks.

Bill Thomas

[(AQ)]

Sept 28, 2018 8:10:38 GMT billthom56 said:

Sept 27, 2018 14:04:42 GMT (AQ) said:

Wondering if Bowman has any ties to the officers that investigated Margaret/Hall murders

AQ:

I thought Henrico PD took the lead in the Hall/Margaret murder investigation.

Thanks.

Bill Thomas

Bill- yes Henrico PD.  iIve also seen RTD mentioned, tho I don't know what that stands for.

My comment, however, wasn't that he was involved in the case, but that he saw or heard something, unknowingly.

The location of where Hall/Margaret were found is less than 10 minutes from I64.  Officer Bowman patrolled I64 & I95, although I don't know the range of his route.

[cleopatra]

Sept 29, 2018 0:29:20 GMT (AQ) said:

Sept 28, 2018 8:10:38 GMT billthom56 said:

AQ:

I thought Henrico PD took the lead in the Hall/Margaret murder investigation.

Thanks.

Bill Thomas

Bill- yes Henrico PD.  iIve also seen RTD mentioned, tho I don't know what that stands for.

My comment, however, wasn't that he was involved in the case, but that he saw or heard something, unknowingly.

The location of where Hall/Margaret were found is less than 10 minutes from I64.  Officer Bowman patrolled I64 & I95, although I don't know the range of his route.





AQ,

Where did you see RTD and in what context was it used?

Cleo

[(AQ)]

Sept 29, 2018 3:05:06 GMT cleopatra said:

Sept 29, 2018 0:29:20 GMT (AQ) said:

Bill- yes Henrico PD.  iIve also seen RTD mentioned, tho I don't know what that stands for.

My comment, however, wasn't that he was involved in the case, but that he saw or heard something, unknowingly.

The location of where Hall/Margaret were found is less than 10 minutes from I64.  Officer Bowman patrolled I64 & I95, although I don't know the range of his route.





AQ,

Where did you see RTD and in what context was it used?

Cleo

On the Hall/Margaret webpage... 

If there is a connection the RPD,HPD,CPD & FBI must have heard something about it by now.

This is one context of it, the other was ( I think) contact RPD, HPD. 

[cleopatra]

Re:  Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman Murder

        Suspect - Trooper Perry L. Worrell

What I find intriguing about this case is that it is one of only TWO brutal slayings/murders that took place within close proximity of each other within a small region of Virginia, and within only TWO days of each other, and both remain unsolved.  The trooper's slaying is the ONLY unsolved killing of a Virginia State Trooper in the State's entire history.  There were thousands of troopers who I am sure had angered many citizens and criminals during their careers, yet none were attacked in such a brutal and pre-meditated manner as this. 

Commonalities which I find interesting between the Trooper Bowman's murder and Margaret's & Hall's murders:

- KNIFE

- STABBED NUMEROUS TIMES

- OVERKILL

- MANY UNPROVEN THEORIES BUT NO SOLID THEORY

- NO OTHER SIMILAR MURDERS (numerous stab wounds, overkill) TOOK PLACE AROUND THE SAME AREAS CRIMES

- CRIME SCENES OFFERED NO CLUES OF MOTIVE

- KILLER'S ABILITY TO REMAIN UNDETECTED

Following are bits and pieces of info from various news articles.  The most interesting article is about a State Trooper who was a suspect.  The trooper was placed on Administrative Leave shortly after the murder and eventually left the department without ever returning from that leave.  The trooper was never charged and he was never cleared.

# 1

On August 19, 1984, around 4:15 a.m., the doorbell rang at Virginia State Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman's home in Manassas. When Bowman answered the door, an unknown assailant stabbed him 45 times. Bowman, unarmed, engaged in a struggle with the assailant, waking up his 2-year-old daughter, who had been sleeping in the home. His wife, brother, and sister-in-law were also in the home at the time. The killer fled, leaving behind sunglases, a wig, and a construction hard hat. Bowman died later from his injuries. The Virginia State Police, the Manassas City Police Department, and the FBI all investigated tirelessly, but never made an arrest. According to the FBI, it's the only unsolved killing of a Virginia State Trooper in the commonwealth's history."

#2

The killing of the 31-year-old off-duty officer spurred one of the most extensive and costly murder investigations in the history of the Virginia State Police, with more than 3,000 people in 41 states interviewed by police, the Washington Post reported at the time.

ON-LINE COMMENT:

I was a police officer in VA when this happened and remember it well. As the news article quoted above indicated a fellow trooper was the original suspect and my still be. Investigators felt they did not have enough evidence to charge him. I believe this is the only unsolved killing of a VA State Trooper in the DepArtment's history.

#3

link:  www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1986/11/26/slaying-probe-focuses-on-va-trooper/890a9819-dde0-4d01-8bd1-cc13660b1664/?utm_term=.13005fd16a3c

Excerpts from above link:

Virginia State Police investigating the slaying of a trooper who was stabbed 42 times on the doorstep of his Manassas town house two years ago are focusing their probe on another state trooper.

Robert C. Martin, the investigator in charge of the case, said Monday that police are "99.4 percent certain" that another state trooper killed Johnny Rush Bowman before dawn Aug. 19, 1984.

Several law enforcement sources said the trooper under investigation is Perry L. Worrell, who joined the state police in 1977 and is on an unpaid leave of absence.

Worrell has not been charged, and his lawyer, Philip J. Hirschkop, said yesterday that Worrell "absolutely swears he has nothing to do with the murder of this trooper."

they were "99.4 percent certain" that they knew who killed Bowman. In response to inquiries by The Washington Post Monday, Martin, the special agent in charge of the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation in the Fairfax field office, confirmed that the suspect is a member of the state police.

Police and prosecutors say they have not sought a grand jury indictment because they do not have sufficient evidence to get a conviction. Investigators zeroed in on a state trooper as the primary suspect because of "the totality of the circumstances," Martin said.

Martin acknowledged yesterday that a trooper was a suspect almost from the beginning of the investigation but said that after a few months the lead seemed to reach a dead end.
At the news conference in August, police said that information gathered in the previous two months had produced "dramatic evidence."  That evidence, Martin said in an interview Monday, pointed to a trooper as a suspect.
He added: "We simply don't have the evidence to, in our judgment, sustain a conviction."
Martin, a 30-year veteran of the force, has said he is "certain that [the] homicide will be solved in view of the fact that more than one person knows who killed Bowman."

He added: "I don't care whether he's a member of this department or any other department. Murder is murder . . . . I'm not concerned about embarrassment to the department. We've always had a history of cleaning our own house."
Police have speculated that Bowman was killed as a result of "some personal problems" involving the assailant, the dead trooper and his wife Terri.

[(AQ)]

Cleo- Neat find and you have me very curious but I need to sign out for the night so can't catch up with you. I'm now bothered bc I stumbled across another Trooper murder today when looking at Hall./Margaret but don't remember the name.

[(AQ)]

Foxnews has this this morning:





Reward offered in cold case death of Virginia State Trooper

[billthom56]

AQ:

$50,000 is a very high reward in a murder case. My read on this is that the Trooper Bowman murder investigation is badly stalled.

Thanks.



Bill Thomas

[billthom56]

Sept 29, 2018 3:27:12 GMT (AQ) said:

Sept 29, 2018 3:05:06 GMT cleopatra said:

On the Hall/Margaret webpage... 

If there is a connection the RPD,HPD,CPD & FBI must have heard something about it by now.

This is one context of it, the other was ( I think) contact RPD, HPD. 

AQ:

I think they mean Richmond Police Department in this context.

Thanks.


Bill Thomas

[(AQ)]

Sept 30, 2018 20:45:47 GMT billthom56 said:

Sept 29, 2018 3:27:12 GMT (AQ) said:

On the Hall/Margaret webpage... 

If there is a connection the RPD,HPD,CPD & FBI must have heard something about it by now.

This is one context of it, the other was ( I think) contact RPD, HPD. 

AQ:

I think they mean Richmond Police Department in this context.

Thanks.


Bill Thomas

Thanks, Bill !!

[(AQ)]

Sept 30, 2018 20:43:10 GMT billthom56 said:

AQ:

$50,000 is a very high reward in a murder case. My read on this is that the Trooper Bowman murder investigation is badly stalled.

Thanks.



Bill Thomas

I agree Bill.

Also, I find it very sad that it takes bribery for people to stand up and do the right thing.  I find it very unlikely that a suspect never tells another person of their crime.  That's a whole lot to keep in.

Price $0 - won't talk
Price $5k - won't talk
Price $50k - won't talk
Price - threat of harm/death - won't talk

[(AQ)]

Alot of this has already been covered but I like Alice De Sturler's recaps.   She provides a couple of links, also.


From:
Defrosting Cold Cases- Johnny Rush Bowman

There is a very small chance that Bowman was not the intended victim. Bowman’s brother and his wife lived in the same house. There is always that small possibility that he was mistaken for his brother. It needs to be explored and crossed off the list.


This attack was a continuation of something that had happened earlier either during work or in private. Forty-five stab wounds is a very rage-driven, personal attack. Whoever did this had a personal score to settle with this officer.


I wonder whether the construction hard hat that was left behind was a generic one or if it had a company’s logo or identification marks on it.

[(AQ)]

Really should have posted this with the above.
Bowman's daughter states it was odd that her dad went to the door w/out his pistol and therefore thinks he knew the guy.
This was early morning hours & there was banging on the door. Myself, I'm not so sure about this... did he look out the windows and see a car he knew?
Myself, I'm not readily buying into 'he knew the suspect(s)' however, with the disquises, perhaps?