A Killer At The Door: The Unsolved Murder of Virginia State Trooper Johnny Bowman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In the early morning hours of August nineteenth, nineteen eighty four,
a Virginia State trooper answered his front door and was
ambushed in an attack lasting no more than three minutes.
He was fatally stabbed more than forty times in front
of his wife, brother, sister in law, as well as

(00:30):
his toddler daughter who had been asleep in bed with
him prior to the attack. From the over the top
disguises left behind at the crime scene to suspects.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
No one would expect.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
The case almost feels like something out of a movie.
For Johnny and those who loved him, it was heartbreakingly real.
His little girl grew up to follow in his footsteps
into a career in law enforcement, and today she remains
determined to uncover the truth about her father's liase, killer
or killers. I'm your host, Megan, and each week on

(01:05):
a Simpler Time True Crime, I cover older unsolved cases
and challenge the idea that a simpler time means a
safer time. This week, I'm bringing to you the unsolved
murder of Virginia State Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman. Saturday, August eighteenth,

(01:43):
nineteen eighty four, had been a busy day for Virginia
State Trooper Johnny Bowman. He had worked a double shift
patrolling the Prince William County Fair. He arrived home that
evening to spend a little bit of time with family,
but mostly to catch up on some slip. He parked
his police vehicle in the driveway and went inside. Johnny's

(02:06):
brother and sister in law were in town visiting, and
it was their first time seeing Johnny's home. In addition
to having those HouseGuests, when he arrived home that evening,
Johnny's wife, Terry, had a friend over, a woman named
Melanie Warrell, who was the wife of Johnny's colleague and
good friend, a fellow Virginia State trooper named Perry Warrel.

(02:30):
And also in the home was Johnny's pride and joy,
his two year old daughter, Ashley Nicole, who went by Nicky.
This made for quite the full house. The Bowmans lived
in a town home in the eighty nine hundred block
of Patterson Place in Manassas, Virginia. I wasn't able to
see any photos of the layout of their particular town home,

(02:53):
but I was able to find the neighborhood and get
a feel for it based on maps and photos of
other townhomes that had recently been sold in the area.
The Bowmans had a three bedroom, two and a half bath,
two story town home that was connected to others, though
theirs appears to be an end unit. These were those

(03:14):
row house style town homes. Manassas is a great location
for DC commuters. It's only thirty miles southwest of DC,
and the city itself has its own vibe to it
with a lot of history. Johnny had grown up in
another part of Virginia four hours away. It's this small
town of Dublin in Pulaska County, and now that he

(03:36):
was six years into working with the Virginia State Police
and assigned to the Independent Hill Office, he and his
family were trying to build a life there. As Terry
continued visiting with Melanie, Johnny made his way up to bed.
It was then that his daughter Nikki asked if she
could sleep with her dad in his bed, which he
agreed to and is super sweet. Sometime after this take,

(04:00):
Mary drove Melanie back home, and she would later say
she didn't want to bother Johnny and Nikki, so she
just fell asleep on the couch. That sleep would be
interrupted around four fifteen am on the morning of Sunday,
August nineteenth, a doorbell rang, and Terry stated that she
looked out the window and didn't see anything, so she

(04:20):
laid back down to go back to sleep, but just
moments later, the doorbell began ringing again. At this time,
she heard her husband, Johnny, coming down the stairs. Some
sources state that Terry asked him not to open the door,
but I couldn't find a direct quote from her saying
that to any type of publication, so we don't know
that for sure. According to Terry, Johnny opened the door.

(04:44):
In some sources, it's reported that prior to him opening
the door, she heard the voice on the other side say,
I'm from the Explative Power company, And in some it
says that she heard the explative and then the person
say they were from the power company. It's not fully clear,
and it's possible that those words were being said as

(05:05):
Johnny was already opening the door, but either way, the
moment Johnny opened the door, Terry stated that he was ambushed.
It was pitch black in the foyer of the home,
so Terry said she could not see the assailant and
she did not.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Recognize his voice.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
In just three short minutes, Johnny was stabbed forty two times.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
All over his body.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Terry simultaneously screamed for help from her brother in law
and his wife upstairs. According to Bobby Bowman, Johnny's brother,
he got a look at the attacker as he got
to the top of the stairwell and it was just
a shadowy figure to him in the dark. He raced
down the stairs, yelling at the intruder to leave his
brother alone. The two reportedly slipped in Johnny's blood as

(05:54):
they grappled for a moment, but the attacker then got
away and ran away on foot, something cropped by evidence,
as there were large bloody shoe prints leading away from
the town home. While this was happening, Terry Bowman was
on the phone with nine one one. There were two
nine one one calls, which I couldn't locate why there

(06:14):
were two separate phone calls, just that this second one
was around for eighteen am. In the call, she reportedly said,
they are killing my husband. Terry actually had to run
by the attacker to get to the phone and get
within feed of what was happening. Some people have scrutinized
that language of they are killing my husband could be

(06:38):
implying that there was more than one person there, or
it could just be that she was talking generally.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's hard to say.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
First responders arrived almost immediately, and with the lights turned on,
the severity of what had just happened became evident. Just
a content warning. This next part in a few others
where I described Johnny's injuries get a little graphic. Johnny
was curled up in the fetal position, covered in blood,
and the blood had sprayed all over the walls, and

(07:07):
it was pooling on the floor. It was just brutal.
Johnny was rushed to Prince William Hospital, where he was
pronounced dead forty five minutes after the attack took place.
Everyone who knew Johnny was shocked.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Repeatedly.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
In articles, he was described as an upstanding guy, mild mannered,
kept to himself, kind, not arrogant, a homebody, stayed out
of trouble, a perfect police record, you name it. He
had served six years in the Marines before going into
law enforcement. Around fourteen hundred people came out to his funeral,

(07:46):
including hundreds of Virginia State troopers with black bands across
their badge. Katie Bolton, the wife of Virginia State trooper
Michael Boltan told the Potomac News quote, Johnny was not
just a state trooper. Johnny was a kind man. No
kind is an it. A lot of people are kind.

(08:07):
He was more than that. I don't want him remembered
only as a state trooper. He was more than that.
When he came home, he Terry and Nikki. They were
everything to him.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Johnny's friend and colleague Perry Worrel then told the paper
he was the nicest person. I know. Everybody always says that,
but with Johnny, it was true. He was like a
brother to me. I'm not going to be able to
talk about him but for a few minutes and then
his voice trailed off and he was having a hard

(08:42):
time collecting himself and not getting choked up. It was
then that Katie Bolton kind of interjected to save the
conversation and said the best way to describe Johnny is
that people could not not like him.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
There was nothing about him not to like.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
I didn't even know him long five years end quote.
Neighbors describe Johnny as a handyman, a family man who
on weekends could be seen maintaining his yard, playing outside
with his daughter or washing his car. He had few
friends outside of his tight circle at the police department.
His wife, Terry, was a security officer at the IBM

(09:21):
plant in Manassas. Another wife of a state trooper who
wanted to go unnamed, told the Potomac News he was
easy going and soft spoken. He laughed at everything. Instead
of getting upset.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
He would laugh.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
I can't ever remember him getting mad. Laid back, that's
what he is, laid back. She also recalled how Terry
told her right after the murder, we called him Big John.
He's trusting, too trusting, you know, Johnny. He just opened
the door, and he was called Big John for a reason.

(10:00):
He was about six feet two, one hundred and eighty pounds.
He was lanky but muscular and frequently worked out. One
person described him as having sleepy eyes, and I see
what they mean when looking at his picture. He just
certainly has soft features and a kind vibe about him.
One of his former roommates said, quote, he was a
quiet guy, an extremely nice guy. He had the ability

(10:23):
to get along with anybody. Even if you tried to
dislike him, you couldn't do it. He was just a
nice country boy.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
And when I tell you, that is just the tip
of the iceberg of the thoughts that were shared about Johnny.
There are just tons of quotes out there, and they
all kind of share the same vibe, the same essence
of who Johnny was and how he had led his life.
The senseless murder of one of their own created a
deep drive to solve his murder, and to do so,

(10:55):
investigators would have to be all hands on deck. The
investigation is a bit tricky because he worked for law
enforcement in the state police, so the FBI was pulled

(11:16):
in instantly and NASA's police investigated as well. Eighteen to
twenty special agents, which was roughly twenty percent of the
force's non narcotics investigators, were assigned to the case at
all times. They were tasked with not only studying the
physical evidence, but also digging into every last detail of

(11:37):
Johnny Bowman's personal and professional life. For one thousand, eighty
two dollars a week, four rooms at the Holiday Inn
in Manassas served as a home.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Base for the task force.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Here is what the investigation revealed about Johnny's injuries and.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
How the attack took place.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
The weapon used was a switchblade style knife, with a
four orange blade. This murder weapon was never found despite
a three day land in air search around the crime scene.
As soon as Johnny Bowman opened the door, they believed
that the first thrusts of the knife caught Johnny Bowmen
in his upper chest, puncturing his pulmonary artery. Then they

(12:18):
stabbed him in the stomach. At this point, Johnny doubled
over and the killer stabbed him in his face, shoulder, back,
and neck. The force of this and his blood loss
made Johnny collapse to the floor, where the killer stood
over him and stabbed him in the arms and legs.
As Johnny lay motionless in the fetal position, Johnny's brother Bobby,

(12:40):
briefly scuffled with the killer, but interestingly enough, the killer
did not stab his brother at all.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
In this altercation.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Bobby described this man as a large black man. What
is even crazier is what was found at the scene.
The source material doesn't say if these items were found
just outside of the house or in the foyer of
the town home, just that they were at the scene.
There was a beige hard hat, a curly auburn colored wig,

(13:11):
and non prescription aviator style glasses. Some sources describe them
as sunglasses and some as just regular glasses, And I
do think that this detail is significant because remember that
Terry and Bobby as witnesses, were saying that it was
too dark in the foyer to even make out anything
about the attacker. So I think it would be an

(13:32):
odd choice for the killer to wear sunglasses because then
he really couldn't see, And just going off of that,
with how dark they were describing it, it's hard for
me to imagine how this killer just landed all of
those stab wounds with such poor visibility. Assuming this was
all part of a disguise, the investigators thought this told
a lot, and they wanted to learn more about the

(13:53):
items to put it into perspective. Because of the brutality
of the attack, some of the earth theories were that
the perpetrator was on drugs or having some sort of
severe mental episode, or possibly someone saw his law enforcement
vehicle in the driveway and hated cops and just attacked him,

(14:13):
But the disguise points away from that and more towards
the place of a very planned and premeditated attack. It
also suggests that the person may have thought Johnny wouldn't
open the door if they showed up just who they were.
It could also mean that the person knew Johnny had
company and several others in the home with him that night,

(14:34):
maybe somebody who could recognize him. The hard hat aligned
with the power company line that was said when the
doorbell rang. Police traced the origin of the hard hat,
which had a six dollars sticker on it and a
strip of green plastic marking tape. Police were able to
determine that it had been manufactured in nineteen seventy nine

(14:57):
in Georgia and used at the Aberdeen Proof Ground in Maryland,
and then subsequently sold at a military surplus store in Baltimore.
It was estimated that it could have been purchased from
as early as nineteen eighty one by whoever had it.
Little was able to be found out about the wig
and sunglasses, and some sources even reference a fake mustache,

(15:20):
but I couldn't verify that as much. Whatever the case
may be, those items are still in evidence storage. There
is one other thought that exists out there that those
items may have been planted there to think it was
a disguise, or to throw investigators off by making them
devote so much time and lose focus. On what the

(15:43):
real situation was, because they're busy investigating where that hard
hat was manufactured, and maybe it had nothing to do
with the crime at all. But we'll kind of revisit
that theory a little more later. Another thing I wanted
to talk about is what Johnny was wearing and the
different ways this is reported. Some sources state that he

(16:05):
was just in a pair of Adidas athletic shorts, some
say he was wearing shorts and a T shirt, and
some go as far as saying he was in shorts,
a T shirt, and sneakers. The clothing could be chalked
up to a pajama preference in how someone likes to sleep,
so that doesn't take up too much of my attention,
But the sneakers do. Who throws sneakers on to answer

(16:26):
their door in the middle of the night. If he
was so half asleep that he just opened the door
without even putting the light on in the foyer or
any other light for that matter, why stop to put.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Your shoes on.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
I think it's an important question and one that hasn't
clearly been consistently answered. In the six months after Johnny
Bowman's murder, the leads of the investigation shared all the
work their team had been doing. They had been working
twelve hour days for months, and their investigations spanned across
forty one states. Why such a light large geographic region,

(17:01):
you ask, Well, they looked into anybody Johnny Bowman had
issued a ticket to or arrested in the eighteen months
leading up to his death. Because Johnny was assigned to
highway duty, mostly on Interstates ninety five and sixty six,
he pulled over a lot of out of state drivers.
They tracked them down, established alibis for them, and that

(17:24):
didn't lead anywhere. In fact, they found that even people
who had received tickets from him didn't hold ill will.
They just said he was a nice guy and polite
in their traffic stops. They retraced every movement, literally his
hour to hour activities he did in the few weeks
leading up to his death, looking to see if Johnny
had any sort of weird habits or patterns they could

(17:46):
pick up on that would have led him to have
an interaction with someone or piece together any type of clue,
But that led nowhere. Two long years would pass. Terry
and Niki moved out of the town home immediately after
Johnny's death and tried piecing together a new life, and
the community waited for the case to be solved. Johnny

(18:08):
was and still is the only state trooper in Virginia
killed where the case hasn't been solved, and given the
weird chain of events, they really really thought it would
happen fast. But in August of eighty six, investigators held
a press conference where they announced that they had been
doing twenty four hour surveillance on a suspect and that

(18:29):
they anticipated an arrest soon. They wouldn't name the suspect
at the time, but this raised hopes that an arrest
was imminent. Then in November of that same year, they
publicly named their suspect, and the name shocked everybody.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
In November of.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Nineteen eighty six, lead investigator Robert C. Martin and said
police were ninety nine point four percent sure that they
knew who carried out the murder of Trooper Johnny Bowman,
and the person they named was none other than his
friend in colleague, Perry Warrel. Perry and Johnny had served

(19:16):
in the Marines together and then joined forces as state troopers.
Perry had married Terry Bowman's good friend, Melanie who was
the one that was over visiting that evening before Terry
had driven her home. Perry was the same man.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Who could not even finish.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
His thoughts to reporters when talking about his friend when
interviewed at the time of the funeral. So what exactly
made Robert C. Martin and his team point the finger
at Perry Warrel Well, He described it as quote the
totality of circumstances. You see, Perry had been placed on
administrative leave just a few weeks after Johnny's murder. He

(19:57):
had been described as a ticking time bomb and was
said to be very emotionally off. In the days and
weeks following the murder, Perry Warrell's lawyer, a man named
Philip J. Hirshkopp, maintained Perry's innocence, saying his client had
no idea about who killed his friend Johnny Bowmen and

(20:17):
that he certainly didn't have anything to.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Do with it.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
He stated that Perry Warrell was on leave from the
department and it had nothing to do with the misconduct,
but rather that he was on medical leave due to
being so distraught over the deaths of his friend. Martin,
on the other hand, went on to say that he
believes the murder had to do with a personal dispute
between Bowman, his wife Terry, and the assailant, that they

(20:42):
were all very well acquainted with one another, and he
was specific in saying that it was not a love triangle.
He shared that despite putting these pieces together, he and
the prosecution team had not filed for a grand jury
indictment because they felt they did not have sufficient evidence
to bring it to trial. He's scoffed at the idea

(21:03):
of a cover up or any embarrassment on the department, saying, quote,
I don't care if he's a member of this department
or any other. Murder is murder. I'm not concerned about
embarrassment to the department. We've always had a history of
cleaning our own house end quote. Worrell did match the
profile of the FBI that they had determined about the killer,

(21:26):
which said that the suspect would have become increasingly anxious
and depressed, unable to cope with his crime. The profile
also shared that the suspect probably regrets his acts, he
may be increasingly prone to violence, and could turn upon
any associate whom he thinks has been disloyal Robert Seymartin

(21:47):
told The Washington Post that he was nearly certain how
the crime played out and that they just did not
have the evidence to prove it. Another state police investigator
named Ralph Marshall told the Post quote, I'm almost one
hundred percent convinced, certainly beyond any reasonable doubt. Paul Ebert,
who was the Prince William County prosecutor at the time,

(22:10):
agreed that they didn't have enough to prosecute.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Martin. Told the Post that.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
More than one person knew who did this and what happened,
and Ebert emphasized that if these people came forward, they
would be treated fairly. Around the same time, it came
out that those closest to the case did not believe
that the chain of events occurred as reported. It's unclear
which part they did not believe, but prosecutor Paul Ebert

(22:35):
told the Washington Post that he specifically was skeptical that
anybody announced that they were from the power company. It's funny.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
I was deep reading.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
A message board. I can't remember if it was Reddit
or a message board actually, but either way, it was
on this case, and someone local to the area was
talking about who served the area for utilities and electricity
at the time, and for the electricity company. So I
live in Rochester, New York, and I would never refer

(23:06):
to ours as the power company, nor would they announce
themselves that way. It would just be I'm from RGNE
or Rgnie came to my house. And this poster shared
a similar sentiment that nobody in that area would have
referred to that utility worker that way, but rather the
company that served the area. So that's just food for thought.

(23:30):
But if as investigators you're questioning the chain of events,
then that implies that you feel that some of those
witnesses know something different than what they're reporting, or that
they're involved themselves. That includes Johnny's wife, Terry, or his
brother Bobby, And related to that, Perry worel is a

(23:52):
white man. Bobby stood by that the man he scuffled
with was a large black man.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Now, I want to.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Be fair here, I am not saying that anybody in
that house had anything to do with it. Terry Bowman
was interviewed twenty years after the murder by The Washington Post,
and she talked about how traumatic that night was and
how she still has images of it in her mind. Constantly.
There's a memorial page set up for Johnny Bowmen and

(24:21):
other fallen officers, and over the years, Terry's left messages
on there. As recently as twenty twenty. On the thirty
sixth anniversary of his murder, she wrote the following, thirty
six years ago you were taken from us, and your
killer still remains free. You will never be forgotten, Johnny.
Nicky and I think of you every day and wonder

(24:42):
how your murder remains unsolved. I pray every night for answers,
in hope of your case being closed and your killer
being brought to justice. I hope before I leave this
world that NICKI and I get the closure we have longed.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
For for the past thirty six years. Rest in peace.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Until we meet again. Johnny's wife, Terry Bowman was never
publicly considered a suspect, but was also never publicly cleared,
at least from what I could find. In November of
eighty six, at the time that Warrel was announced as
a suspect, his lawyer told the press that the last
time he had spoken to Perry Warrel was indirectly in

(25:24):
August of that year, when the press conference was held
about how police had someone under constant surveillance. The lawyer
Hirshchop said that at the time, Melanie Warrel reached out
to him alongside Johnny's widow Terry, to report that police
were harassing them, and that Hirschkop told police that if
they didn't stop, he'd have to take some action, and

(25:46):
that after that it died down. That joint phone call
is of course interesting in something to just take note of.
The timing of announcing Warrell as a suspect was interesting
because he was currently in the hospital in Syria, est
but stable condition. He had fully left the police force
after his admin leave and gotten into the tow truck business.

(26:08):
He had been responding to a disabled car on the
side of the highway off ramp when a third vehicle
driven by someone who fell asleep at the wheel, crashed
into them and pinned Warrel between his wrecker and the
disabled vehicle. He was severely injured with a broken leg
amongst many other injuries, and ended up being in the
hospital for a while and having lifelong injuries that impacted

(26:29):
his ability to have employment for a long time. As
police announced him as a suspect, Hirshkop told the press quote.
I know of no fact, no evidence, and no motive
that would link Warrel to this crime. His wife and
he have both sweared they were home in bed together.
I think the police are grabbing at straws. It certainly

(26:51):
is not normal police work. If they were ninety nine
percent sure, they would have arrested someone a long time ago,
end quote. Despite the promise of these leads, more time
would pass, and with it the case would grow cold.

(27:15):
In nineteen eighty nine, Johnny Bowman's father passed away. In
nineteen ninety, his mother gave permission to exume his body.
The police were hoping to find any knife fragments that
might still be there. While they were unsuccessful in doing that,
they did say they found additional information that would be
helpful to the investigation. His mother, Don told the Potomac

(27:38):
News that her husband died before getting answers, something that
he longed for. Dawn broke her silence, giving a fiery
interview to the newspaper. She talked about how her two
surviving sons, including Bobby, who was there that night, still
lived nearby to her, and that they collectively lean on
each other to navigate the grief and the bitterness. She said, quote,

(27:59):
it's a horrible thing that they have been trying to
keep a secret, and it's horrible that the family knows
who did it. It's a horrible thing to live with
each day. The implication there was that she believed it
was Perry Warrel. She said her son was a good
boy who wouldn't hurt a soul. He would do his job,
but he was respectful, and then she dropped a bombshell.

(28:24):
She shared that she had her own theory at how
the murder took place and that she didn't believe it
played out at all how it was described. She believed
the assailants plural knew Johnny and were already inside the
house at the time of the attack, and that her
son was killed because he had information that would incriminate.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
The people involved in his death.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
She then spoke of her granddaughter, Nikki, who was now
seven at the time of the interview, and she said, quote,
if she's got any of Johnny in her and I
know she does, she won't stop until she get some answers.
When something like this happens, children have a way of
growing up knowing. And wow, was Don Bowman prophetic because

(29:10):
that's exactly how it played out. Nikki Bowman decided to
follow in her father's footsteps in law enforcement. At age
thirty one, the same age as her father when he died,
she was sworn and as an officer for the Manassas
Police Department. She doesn't work on her father's case because that,
of course, would be a conflict of interest, but she's

(29:32):
a fierce advocate, and just as her grandmother predicted, there
are pieces that just don't add up to her. In
twenty eighteen, she did an interview with the FBI that
I have linked in the show notes, and she said,
quote he answers the door and then is immediately ambushed.
The whole event, from what I'm understanding of, took place

(29:53):
in the foyer. He was stabbed somewhere between forty and
forty five times throughout his entire body. I've always wondered,
especially now being in the field myself, i would either
answer the door with some type of protection, or I'm
not going to answer the door at all. It's one
of those two things, or I'll call it in. Hey
there's some guy, some girl whatever on my front doorstep.

(30:15):
I don't know them. It's four in the morning. Can
you send somebody by, it's just off. There's just something off,
which is why I feel like maybe the story that's
out there is not actually what happened.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
End quote. Nikki is pleading with.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Those who have answers to come forward. The case was
reopened twenty years ago in two thousand and five and
has had people working it on and off since. Forensic
evidence from nineteen eighty four has been resubmitted several times
now as forensics advance and we don't know what exactly
the evidence is, just that it exists and could tell

(30:50):
a story. Interestingly enough, since the forensic advancements, police have
backed off on their public certainty of Perry Worel as
the perpetrator. At this point, the discussion on Perry would
either be to solidify him as their guy and close
the case, or exonerate him publicly because he can't be
put on trial. He died in twenty fifteen. Johnny's brother

(31:15):
Bobby died in two thousand and five, and Bobby's wife,
Doris Bowman, who was in the house that night, died
in twenty fourteen. Johnny's mom, Dawn, died in twenty twelve.
Terry is still alive and Melanie is a bit off
the grid and distanced from the case at this point.
There are some interesting messaging threads out there related to

(31:36):
this case that discussed Melanie and Terry. There's also a
Facebook post from someone who claims to be a good
friend of Johnny's and a cousin of Perry war Else.
He claims to know what happened and shares how he
has hit a brick wall because of a large scale
cover up. He claims to have been polygraphed himself in
this investigation and that amongst other things. Because it's all speculation,

(32:00):
and I'm not going to mention any of the specifics
on this podcast, but it's there if you fall into
the rabbit hole on this case, and information being out
there is what seems to be a common theme in
this case. NICKI stands by that there are people out
there that know what happened. So with that, I'll end

(32:21):
this episode with a quote from Nicki in her interview
with the FBI. There are people that were here that
are either still here or maybe have moved somewhere else.
But word travels fast in small communities like this, and
I would find it very hard to believe that there's
not someone or multiple people that know what happened that day,

(32:43):
whether it was by word of mouth, they were there,
someone that was there told them. But somebody knows something.
To me, there's no way that that's not possible, and
I would just hope that they could find it in
their hearts to do the right thing. If you are
that person and know something about what happened to Johnny

(33:05):
Bowman back in nineteen eighty four, please contact the FBI
at one eight hundred two two five five three two
four or the Virginia State Police at seven zero three
eight zero three twenty six seventy six. You can also
go online and leave tips at tips dot FBI dot gov.

(33:28):
It should be noted that the FBI is offering a
fifty thousand dollars reward for information, and that anybody can
remain anonymous. This has been another episode of a Simpler
Time True crime. If you wish to support the show financially,
you can join my Spreaker Supporter Club in the bottom
of the show notes, there's a link there. This just

(33:50):
helps me with the costs to keep growing this podcast,
but all support is invaluable to me. In word of mouth,
social media shares and reviews are huge, so thank you
so much for taking the time to do that, and
as always, I appreciate you listening and tuning in and
join me again next Monday.

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