Clifford Henry Bowen

When a case goes to trial it is only on the rare occasion that every detail is known by the prosecution. Sure, we see confessions from people and there is always the evidence that is used to point to the defendant. Confessions are a tricky thing. When they are not coerced or proven to be completely false confessions, they are still almost always riddled with inconsistencies and falsehoods. This should come as no surprise considering the fact that those who give the confessions are generally involved in the crime. Perpetrators normally do not want to come off as a “monster” and for that and other reasons will often lessen their role and culpability to a crime.

Most often a prosecutor is forced to come up with a “theory” when it comes to the motive behind the crime, but in cases in which there is not a confession they are also forced to come up with a theory on how things took place. It is not unheard of to hear of a “strange” theory or one that seems implausible, but more often than not those theories come from the defense side of the courtroom. At least that has been what I have seen the most. What I have never seen is a case in which the prosecution presents a theory that is not plausible in any way what so ever and yet not only do they still present it, they have nothing to back the theory up and they hide information from the jury that would show not just how unlikely the theory is, but there was no way that it could have occurred. This theory came so late in the trial of Clifford Henry Bowen that the defense had no way of investigating the theory in time to show the jury just how impossible this would have been.

In the early morning hours of July 6, 1980 three men were at a hotel pool in Oklahoma City. Around 2:00 gunshots rang out and when it was over the men would be dead. It was not made completely clear if the three men, Ray Peters, Laurence Evans and Marvin Nowlin knew each other before that night and to be fair I found little when it came to Evans and Nowlin other than their names.

It was almost immediately theorized that Peters had been the target of the shooting and investigators believed a man by the name of Harold Dean Behrens was behind the shooting. Behrens was a former police detective who had been disgraced and was now a known drug dealer. Behrens himself admitted to being at the pool with the three men just a few minutes before they were shot. But, Behrens was not the shooter and everyone knew that. Another man had been seen by at least two people near the concession stand area of the pool and was seen running after the shooting had occurred. Investigators theorized that Ray Peters had worked for Behrens and that after a recent arrest for DUI and possession of drugs that Peters would begin working with the police against Behrens. At least one witness would alleged that when Behrens had left the pool area he had placed his hand on Behrens' shoulder as he left and was saying goodbye. Prosecutors would say this was a sign to the gunman that Peters was the intended target.

The two eyewitnesses were Mary Lee Chilton, the night manager and Carrie Pitchford a patron of the hotel. Both described to the investigators the stranger they saw hanging around the area for a few hours. A flyer was distributed to the media and law enforcement with the description or the best that they could come up with since the two women had some slight differences in what they noticed. Officially the description was of a white man of about fifty years old, six foot one and about 210-250 pounds. The man had salt and pepper hair and it was of medium length. Both women described him as wearing a red baseball cap, brown work boots that were laced up and being “very pale” in complexion.

A detective by the name of David McBride would say that when he heard the description of the stranger he immediately thought of Clifford Bowen. McBride was also going on the theory of Behrens being involved. McBride had worked with Behrens in the organized crime department before Behrens had been disgraced and fired. He would say that one of their assignments included tailing a man named Jerry Ray James and that while doing so they had come across Clifford Bowen. Neither James, nor Bowen, would be charged in anything that had been involved at that time, and by all accounts they had not even spoken to the men. But, it was because of that investigation that McBride would allege that Behrens could have later made connections with Bowen. Neither of the eyewitnesses at the hotel would claim that the stranger wore glasses and yet McBride would later testify that it was their description of “horn-rimmed glasses” that made him suspect Bowen in the first place.

The two eyewitnesses would later identify Bowen through a photo lineup although it seems that they were less than one hundred percent certain. In fact, Mary Lee Chilton was hypnotized to allegedly “sharpen her memory.” The fact that she was hypnotized would not be told to a jury left to decide Bowen's fate and would be only a portion of things that would later come back to bite the prosecutors.

Harold Dean Behrens would face his own trial in connection with the murders, separate from one that Clifford Bowen would face. Behrens would apparently always deny being involved in the murders, but it was also said that he refused deals that would require him to finger Bowen, who he continually stated he did not know. At Behrens trial his former lover, Jack Zumwalt was called to testify and stated that it was not customary for Behrens to touch people when they parted company. The prosecution used this to bolster their theory that when Behrens put his hand on Ray Peters' shoulder he was signaling to the gunman. Zumwalt would also claim that Behrens had “all but confessed” to him that he was involved in the crime but never once mentioned Clifford Bowen. It seems unclear what kind of evidence that the prosecutions really had against Behrens but regardless of that he was convicted and given a life sentence. I was able to determine that his conviction and sentence were upheld in 1982 and 1985. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections states that Behrens was released from prison on March 25, 2004. According to Findagrave.com this was the date of Behrens death and according to his obituary he died in Springfield Missouri. It seems to indicate that he was still likely serving time but doing so in a Missouri prison. But, as you will later see the Oklahoma Department of Corrections does not appear to be a site that can be completely relied upon.

For his part Clifford Henry Bowen was also arrested and charged with the three murders on August 28, 1980, some six weeks after the crime. Bowen did not live in the Oklahoma City area but three hundred miles away in Tyler Texas. He had a burglary conviction dating back to 1958 and in 1967 or 1968 he had been convicted for conspiracy to commit a bank robbery. Aside from that it was thought he kept with shady company and it was said that he made his living playing poker, but there did not seem to have anything else in his criminal history. The newly elected prosecutor, Robert “Cowboy Bob” Macy personally prosecuted the case.

I spoke of Macy in a recent blog about Curtis McCarty. While at the time, especially early in his career as prosecutor, Macy was thought highly of, it would be later reflections that would show what some believed to be his true character. Like many cases he would prosecute over the next few decades Macy would seek the death penalty against Clifford Bowen.

At his trial the defense presented more than a dozen witnesses who testified that Bowen was a rodeo in Tyler on the day of the murders. They would all claim that he was there until late into the night. One witness would claim that he had called Bowen's Tyler home at about one that morning, just one hour before the murders occurred, and spoke to him personally. Several of those witnesses also testified that on July 6^th Bowen was quite suntanned and not “very pale” as described by the witnesses. The defense was obviously arguing that Bowen did not have the time or the opportunity to commit the murders. In rebuttal to that claim the prosecution presented evidence to the jury that there was an “airstrip” near the rodeo area and suggested that Bowen could have chartered a jet from there, giving him time to get to Oklahoma City. What the jury did not know, nor apparently the defense at that time, was that this alleged airstrip was “abandoned” and it no longer had the ability to have planes come in and out of the area. Defense attorney's would later determine that it had been more than two years since a plane had even been in the area, but of course that was not known for sure at the time of the trial. Even still, what is more amazing to me is that the prosecutors not only did not have evidence that Bowen had in fact chartered a jet or private plane as they claimed as being possible, they presented no evidence that the had the means or ability to obtain the said plane.

Despite all of that in March of 1981 Clifford Henry Bowen was convicted on three counts of murder and was sentenced to death. Obviously the defense appealed the conviction and to their surprise they found that there had been an alternate suspect known to the prosecutors at the time of the trial and investigation and they had not been made aware. The suspect was named Leonard Lee Crowe and in reality by the time it was all over there would be more evidence pointing to Crowe than what had been used to convict Bowen.

By all accounts the defense never would have had to officially look into Crowe because law enforcement and prosecutors had already done all the work for them, and yet they had not informed them of this discovery. It would be due to this discovery that in January of 1986 an appeals court would sit Bowen's conviction aside and order a new trial. The courts had called the misconduct by the prosecution a Brady violation. If you do not know, the “Brady Rule” is a law that requires that a prosecutor must disclose all information that could prove the guilt, or the innocence, of a defendant to the defense. This also includes disclosing deals in which they have made with others to not prosecute or other special arrangements for their testimony or information. But, when it came to this case it was discovered that the prosecution did not disclose the information about Leonard Crowe, hence the Brady Violation. Now, despite this courts do not always take action against the prosecutor legally, in fact, it only occurs on the rare occasion and this was not one of them. After the courts vacated the conviction it was more than a year and a half later before the prosecutors decided not to retry Bowen in July of 1987 and he would be released.

As is often the case prosecutors will still insist that they had gotten the right person but that time and legalities prevent them from gaining a conviction. If you look on websites you will find Bowen on the lists of exonerated inmates and technically he was, although the prosecutors still argue that he was the guilty man in this case. The loophole that the prosecutors use is that in instances like this case, there was not a decision in which the person was found innocent or even that the courts ruled there was not significant evidence to warrant a conviction. Nor, had anyone else been proven to be guilty. Although I have seen, and I will be doing a blog soon, cases in which despite DNA evidence that points away from a convicted individual the prosecutors will insist that the new suspect worked with the previous one to commit the crime. This is all about “saving face.” Prosecutors do not want to admit that they were wrong, and only on the rare occasion will they do so. Many times it is this stubbornness that prevents them from pursuing anyone else for the crime no matter how much evidence there may have been.

So, just who was Leonard Lee Crowe? Well, at the time of the murders he working as a lieutenant in a police department in Hanahan South Carolina where he was living. However, he was just about to reach the same status as Behrens faced, that of a disgraced police officer. Crowe was under investigation as he was suspected as being a “hit man.” It appeared that every time Crowe left South Carolina a homicide would occur where he had been. He obviously had other issues to boot. But, most importantly, at the time of the murders Crowe was living with Patsy Peters, the ex-wife of Ray Peters.

In November of 1981 a woman named Deana Burris had gone to the police in South Carolina. She had once been a roommate of both Patsy Peters and Leonard Crowe. At the time the police were investigating the shooting of a man named Ricky Seagreaves. I will get into that case more in just a bit, but it is suffice to say that investigators were also looking into Crowe for that crime. In the middle of all of this Burris reported that in June of 1980 she had overheard the couple plotting to kill Ray Peters. According to Burris, Patsy did not want Ray near their children, for whatever reason that was. The officer who took the report did not take it seriously at the time. Burris was a known drug user and prostitute. She went back to the police in April of 1983 and at this time she was clean and sober and her information was sent to Oklahoma authorities. Of course this was two years after Bowen had been convicted and sent to death row. Burris also told investigators that while Crowe and Patsy Peters had left Oklahoma City later in the day of July 6^th and headed back to South Carolina, Patsy had contacted her several times asking if anyone had inquired about Crowe.

In 1985 the defense attorney's found a binder that had belonged to the police that contained documents from 1980 when they had investigated the crime and there was a lot of information about Leonard Crowe and Patsy Peters. It was discovered then that authorities not only knew about Crowe and Peters, but they also knew that the couple had been in Oklahoma City at the time of the murders. In fact, they had left later in the day after the murders and headed back home. According to the defense Crowe resembled the description of the “stranger” better than Bowen had.

According to notes in the binder, Ray's mother had told investigators that a few weeks before the murders Ray had spoken to Patsy and told her if she came back to Oklahoma City that he would tell her parents that she was working as a prostitute. This was not necessarily an idle or false threat. There was ample evidence that this was exactly what she was doing in South Carolina. In fact, the binder reported that had Crowe not resigned from the police department he would have been fired due to his association with both prostitutes and felons. A few years before he had also been fired from the Charleston Sheriff's department, although I did not discover the reason behind that firing.

Investigators also knew that while the couple had been in Oklahoma that Crowe had gone to Irving Texas to apply for a job at the police department there. For whatever reason, their apparent procedure was to take pictures of applicants. The investigators obtained the picture and saw that Crowe had a mustache at the time it was taken, but they also knew that when he had returned to South Carolina he no longer had the mustache. Investigators also discovered that Crowe carried a .45 caliber weapon and had silver tip bullets, both of which were known to be used in what was now being called “The Guest House Murders.”

There was even something else that seemed even more interesting. Remember I discussed the shooting of Ricky Seagreaves earlier? His murder was being investigated in South Carolina when Deana Burris first told investigators about the alleged information she knew about Ray Peters' murder. Well, throughout his interrogations and negotiations Harold Behrens had told investigators something interesting. While the prosecutors had alleged that Behrens was worried that Peters would be a confidential informant, it was Behrens who actually worked with the police. He had informed them that Ray Peters had been murdered because he had “ripped off” a man named Paul Mazell who was said to be the head of organized crime in South Carolina. Confidential informants in both South Carolina and Oklahoma had informed law enforcement that Ray Peters and Ricky Seagreaves worked with each other. At some point two men had kidnapped and killed Ricky Seagreaves for Mazell. It was also determined by South Carolina authorities that Leonard Crowe was also associated with Paul Mazell, both before and after he resigned from the police force. While South Carolina authorities would say that they believed Leonard Crowe had committed the murders in Oklahoma City, their beliefs did not matter considering it was not their case to investigate.

Despite all of this evidence that was all gathered in the early 1980's it appears that investigators never moved forward on it. It still remained dormant after Bowen's conviction was overturned and prosecutors had to admit that they did not have the evidence to re-try him for the murders. Detective David McBride would die in 2015 after he had retired as the police chief of Oklahoma City. If you remember he was the one who claimed that he initially thought about Bowen because of the description given by the eyewitnesses. Crowe, would apparently never face any charges in either South Carolina or Oklahoma. He would die in Oklahoma in 2010. It was unclear if he remained with Patsy Peters or what came of her but she obviously faced no charges herself.

In the blog about Curtis McCarty I detailed the scandals that Robert Macy faced before his “early retirement” in 2001 when an investigation began against a police chemist named Joyce Gilchrist. Macy died in 2011 and Gilchrist in 2015.

So none of the three men murdered that early morning in July of 1980 ever received justice. In addition to that if you go to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections website and put in Clifford Bowen's name it still shows that he was given a death sentence. It shows the status as being “inactive” but have to be looking for that because under the heading of “discharge date” it states “active.” It simply states next to “Current Facility,” “outside.” I have looked at a lot of cases and several Department of Correction websites and I have never seen anything like the one I have found in Oklahoma. In the case of Curtis McCarty he has been returned to prison for other charges, hence his “discharge date” is and should be shown as “active.” However, his murder charges are not listed on the site such as Bowen's are and these were not new charges for Bowen as the date of entry was the date of his conviction in 1981. It is almost as if the state of Oklahoma still refuses to admit they were wrong!! Even Harold Behrens “discharge date” shows a date as it is the date of his death in 2004.

I am unsure if I am more amazed at the audacity that some in authority have or the fact that I can still be surprised by it.