Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 28, 1990 TAG: 9007280197
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"He is a very friendly person," said a relative who asked not to be identified. "He's always willing to help somebody."
Friday morning, police said, someone took advantage of that helpful nature. They hit Bowman with a steel-frame chair after knocking out his teeth, breaking his ribs and arm, damaging his intestines and injuring his head and face.
Bowman, 59, of Hillsville was in critical condition Friday night at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Police said two men tried to kill him after robbing him and stealing a bank bag containing money from the Townhouse Motel, which Bowman's wife manages for his brother. Police said the incident occurred between midnight and 9 a.m. Friday.
The following account was provided by authorities and Bowman's relative, who was interviewed by phone at a waiting room outside the hospital's intensive care unit:
Thursday night as Bowman and his wife, Emily, were getting ready for bed, the only two guests at the motel knocked on the door and complained that the toilet in their room was stopped up. Bowman gave them a plunger and told them to try it, but they came back to his room and said it didn't work. He assured them he'd get a plumber in the morning.
While his wife went to sleep, he apparently got partly dressed and walked down to the guests' room.
Friday morning, when Emily Bowman woke up, her husband was gone. She decided to go to her beauty shop appointment, hoping he would be back when she returned.
"She thought he had gone fishing," the relative said. Bowman often fished in nearby Cricket Creek.
But when Emily Bowman returned to the motel about 9 a.m., her husband still was missing. She checked their house a few miles away and looked for him on the golf course.
She returned to the motel, walked to the room where the guests were staying and knocked on the door to tell them the plumber was coming. She heard someone mumble inside.
Thinking it was a response from someone sleeping, she walked back to the room she shared with her husband. She picked up his jeans and noticed his wallet was still there before spotting an open desk drawer with a bank bag missing.
She called Hillsville police.
Emily Bowman walked with Sgt. Mark Chappell to the guests' room. After knocking three times, police entered with a key.
They shoved the door open about 8 inches before suddenly shutting it back.
"You can't go in there," police told her.
Friday night, Hillsville police were seeking the two men on possible robbery and attempted capital murder charges. One suspect was described as a white male, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inces, 150 to 160 pounds, with medium-length blond hair and thick lips, wearing blue jeans with hole in them and white high-topped tennis shoes. The other was a white male, 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, 185 to 200 pounds, with black hair and wearing black high-top tennis shoes. Both men were wearing earrings.
Bowman's navy blue Econoline van with the Virginia license number TJ73016 also was missing. The first two letters of the truck's rear-end Ford emblem had fallen off.
When the two men wandered into the motel on foot Wednesday, they said they were looking for work, the relative said.
"They were paying for everything with rolled-up coins."
by CNB