PrayersForMaura
Help Find Maura Murray
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Can we put Monica's name in the title of the thread by chance?
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2007/07/12/kidnap_0713.html
Linda Howard's eyes were wet, as though she hadn't stopped crying in a week. Her answers were sometimes one word "yes" or "no." As she met with reporters Thursday morning in a Decatur lawyer's office, she said she had little choice but to take her pain and loss public.
Otherwise, her daughter, Monica Renee Bowie, who is missing and apparently abducted, would be forgotten.
"Once the media stops, it's hard to start it again," Howard said.
Bowie, 34, was taken from her apartment complex in DeKalb County on the night of July 5. Neighbors said they heard her scream: "Someone help! I need help! Help me!" Investigators found evidence of a struggle in the parking lot. The next day, the car used in her abduction was found torched.
On Saturday, DeKalb County police arrested Jasper Keels, 24, charging him with theft by taking of the car and drug possession. Police said they don't know whether there's a connection between Keels and Bowie's abduction. Howard and family members, meantime, are clinging to hope and hoping her abductors are listening.
more at link...
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/2007/07/16/missing_0716.html
More than a week after Monica Renee Bowie's disappearance, DeKalb County police remain stumped in trying to solve her apparent abduction.
Deputy Chief Mike Burrows indicated as much in his comments on Sunday, after Linda Howard offered a heartfelt plea for information leading to her daughter's safe return and announced the establisment of reward funds and a web site developed in connection with the case.
Authorities are hoping results from items being tested at the state crime lab, database searches, continued interviews with and background checks on persons of interest will help.
Police aren't certain that Bowie's mysterious disappearance on July 5 didn't involve a stranger and are concerned that tips have reduced to a trickle.
more at link...
I spoke to mom. She sounded a bit frazzled. I didn't not ask anything about the case. Told her who I was, a little about WS, LTWH, and offered assistance. Gave her my #'s...told her I would be brief, just want her to know we are here. I told her to start a notebook, and that I'd like to speak with her again when she has time to sit down and take a breath. She has been with LE. I didn't question her, I'm sure she is afraid and not sure who she can trust, also being in a strange place. I told her I knew she was not talking with media and asked if she needed me to set her up with someone to represent her w/media, she said "not at this time'. Anywho, she said she'd call me.
It is NOT in the news. A small blurb last night 11 oclock, I haven't seen anything since.
I am afraid to learn the outcome of this one.
This gives us a better picture of who Monica was, what she did. She was an upstanding citizen, a business owner. Also, gives an account of her recent arrest on drugs/weapons charges, seems she took the rap for her BF :slap:
AJC Dekalb
Griggs described Bowie as an "upstanding" member of the community who owns several companies. The list includes Go2girl Promotions Inc., a company that has promoted performances in metro Atlanta by a number of top hip-hop acts, and LaCoca Wear Clothing, a boutique on Metropolitan Parkway in southwest Atlanta.
Bowie had no criminal history before her June 20 arrest on drug and weapon possession charges by Atlanta police, said Griggs and relatives, who consider her recent legal troubles and kidnapping unrelated. The Cheyney University of Pennsylvania graduate was taken into custody in June after she went to retrieve her car from a crime scene, Griggs said.
According to an Atlanta police report, Shernotta Walters was spotted standing in a Campbellton Road parking lot by an officer who "smelled a strong odor of marijuana." The officer had Walters point out his car, where marijuana, cash and a firearm were found. When Bowie arrived, she reported that Walters, her boyfriend, had borrowed her car, and she also was arrested.
Walters remains in the Fulton County Jail. Bowie denied ownership of the weapon or drugs found in the vehicle, Griggs said.
The charges against Bowie, according to Griggs, subsequently were dismissed in Fulton County Magistrate Court.
Dennis Scheib, an Atlanta lawyer representing Walters, said he first learned of Bowie's disappearance from his client, who called him crying and screaming into the phone, "Monica has been kidnapped. She's been kidnapped."
Griggs said the couple had been living together and was engaged.
The charges against Walters, 35, were dismissed after police failed to show up at his probable cause hearing. But Walters, a parolee, will remain in jail, Scheib said, until a parole board decides on his release because of the new charges. Walters went to prison in July 2004 on a drug conviction in Cobb County. He was paroled in April 2006, according to the state Department of Corrections database.
I'm going to send the info to my friends here at work!