Bobby Jack Fowler (1 Viewer)

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DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Bobby Jack Fowler, (June 12, 1939 – May 2006) was an American serial killer and rapist active in the United States and Canada. He died in prison of lung cancer during a 16-year sentence following a conviction for rape, kidnapping and attempted rape in Newport, Oregon, in 1996 (for an attack that took place in 1995).

He was also suspected of four local murders in Lincoln County, Oregon and the Highway of Tears murders in British Columbia.

Fowler is known to have committed murders as early as 1973, and possibly as early as 1969. The murders continued until he was apprehended in 1995.

Fowler is a suspect in the Highway of Tears murders. His DNA was found on the body of Colleen MacMillen, one of the presumed victims. Fowler is also strongly suspected to have killed both Gale Weys and Pamela Darlington in 1973.

The RCMP believe that he may have also killed as many as ten of the other victims, and possibly as many as 20. Canadian victims include mostly First Nation Canadian girls reported missing from Highway 16, a 724 KM roadway dubbed the 'Highway of Tears' due to the high number of murders and disappearances of young women beginning in 1970s: Lana Derrick, 19, Nicole Hoar, 25, Alicia Germaine, 15, Aielah Saric-Auger, 14, her body was found on 10 February 10 2006 in a ditch along Highway 16 approximately 15 kilometers East of Prince George Tamara Chipman, 22, Roxanne Thiara, 15, Ramona Wilson, 16, Delphine Nikal, 16, Cicilia Anne Nikal, Monica Ignas, 15, whose partially nude body was found in a gravel pit on April 6, 1975 strangled and Alberta Wiliams, 24 whose body found in September 1989.

May 3, 1992, just after midnight, around 1:00 a.m. Sheila Swanson, 19 and Melissa Sanders, 17 were last seen making a call from a payphone near the Beverly Beach State Park where they had been camping. Their bodies were later discovered on October 10, 1992, by hunters in a wooded area near Eddyville, Oregon.

January 28, 1995 just after midnight, around 1:00 a.m. Jennifer Esson, 16 and Kara Leas, 16 are last seen walking on NW 56th Street in Newport, Oregon walking toward Highway 101 near Moolack Beach after leaving a friends house. Their strangled bodies were later discovered on February 15, 1995, by loggers in a wooded area, covered up with brush.

1thumb.
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2. Fowler in 1972.
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DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Bobby Jack Fowler

Background information
Birth name: Bobby Jack Fowler
Born: June 12, 1939 (age 73)
[Birth Place]: Unknown
Died: May 2006
Cause of death: End-stage lung cancer
Sentence: 16 Years, 3 Months with the possibility of parole

Killings
Number of victims: Up to 20
CountryUnited States, Canada
State(s): Oregon, British Columbia
Date apprehended: June 28, 1995

1. Fowler 1989
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2. Fowler 1994
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3. Fowler in 1995.
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DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Bobby Jack Fowler: He was violent, charming and sometimes disarming
By Douglas Quan, Postmedia News September 25, 2012


VANCOUVER—Described by authorities as “extremely violent” and “nasty,” Bobby Jack Fowler was convicted in Oregon in the 1990s of the kidnap, assault and attempted rape of a woman who hurled her naked body out of a second-storey motel window because she thought he was going to kill her.

Now, the transient construction worker, who died in prison in 2006, has been linked by DNA to the 1974 murder in northern British Columbia of 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen, one of 18 young women who vanished or were murdered while hitchhiking along the so-called “Highway of Tears” from 1969 to 2006, RCMP officials announced Tuesday.

Fowler is also considered a suspect in the deaths of two other young B.C. women, though police do not have DNA matches in those cases.

Authorities in Oregon have also pegged Fowler as a suspect in the 1995 homicide of two 16-year-old girls in that state.

“He had a propensity to pick up female hitchhikers. He was extremely violent. He was also very charming and disarming sometimes. People tell us his personality could change on a moment’s notice,” RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk told a news conference on Tuesday.

“He was of the belief that a lot of the women he came into contact with – specifically women that hitchhike and women that went to taverns and beer parlours and drank – that they had a desire to be sexually assaulted.”

RCMP officials said they got their break when they submitted evidence from MacMillen’s case for DNA analysis. At first they got no matches, but when they resubmitted samples earlier this year to INTERPOL, which has access to foreign databases, they got word that there had been a match in Oregon.

Officials said they are certain Fowler is responsible for the death of MacMillen, who left her Lac La Hache home on Aug. 9, 1974 and planned to hitchhike to a friend’s house when she disappeared. Her body was later found off a logging road 46 kilometres away.

While Fowler has been cleared as a suspect in eight of the Highway of Tears cases, he is considered a “person of interest” in the remaining nine, particularly in the cases of 19-year-old Gale Weys, who was last seen hitchhiking near Clearwater in October 1973, and 19-year-old Pamela Darlington, whose body was found in Pioneer Park in November 1973.

“We believe there are people out there who employed Fowler, worked with him, socialized with him or even waited on him while he was in British Columbia. We are asking you to think back to the 70s, 80s and 90s – and your own memories of that time period, then have a look at his photos, and please call us with any information you may have about him,” Shinkaruk said.

Fowler is known to have worked in the Prince George area in 1974 for a roofing company, police said. He frequently travelled from state to state and across the border doing labour work and other odd jobs, living out of motels and driving beat-up cars until they quit.

He also racked up a long criminal record with convictions in several U.S. states for attempted murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping, attempting sexual assault and firearm offenses, police said.

1. Suspected Oregon victim: Melissa Sanders, 1992.
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2. Suspected Oregon victim: Sheila Swanson, 1992.
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3. Victim Jennifer Esson, 15.
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DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Cont'd

His most recent conviction, in 1996, was related to the vicious attack of a 35-year-old woman he had met at a bar in Oregon.

According to court records obtained by Postmedia News, Fowler approached the woman while she played on a poker machine and convinced her to join him for dinner and a trip to the casino in Lincoln City.

They stopped at a motel where Fowler was staying so she could take a shower. At one point, Fowler told the woman that he believed women liked to be spanked and raped, according to the records. When she disagreed, he became agitated.

“I could tell he was pissed off that I wasn’t buying his ideas on women and what they wanted,” the woman testified in court.

Fowler punched the woman several times in the face and screamed that he would break her jaw if she kept yelling.

“I remember being dizzy. And I remember — I remember him hitting me. And I don’t know. It was like all of a sudden I had no clothes on.

“I will never forget in my whole life the look in this man’s eyes. And he said to me, ‘I think I’ll put you in the ocean. Yeah, I’ll put – I’m – I’m going to put you in the ocean.”

Fowler grabbed a rope and put it around her neck and repeatedly punched her in the back of the neck. She tried to escape out the door but he managed to pull her back with the rope.

Finally, she bit him and she leapt out an open window with the rope tied around an ankle. A man below broke her fall.

Fowler was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Adamant that he had been wrongfully convicted, he filed multiple appeals.

In 2004, while serving time at the Snake River Correctional Institution, Fowler filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court that his civil rights had been violated because “all elements of the kidnap charge was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” He named the state, the trial judge and his defence lawyer as defendants and sought $3 million in compensation.

Fowler died at Oregon State Penitentiary in May 2006 due to late-stage lung cancer. He was 66.

In a statement to reporters Tuesday, Colleen MacMillen’s brother, Shawn, said his family was “stunned” by the developments.

“It has been a long wait for answers, and although it is a somewhat unsatisfactory result because this individual won’t have to stand trial for what he did, we are comforted by the fact that he was in prison when he died and that he can’t ever hurt anyone else,” he said.

“Colleen was a lovely, sweet, innocent 16-year-old kid, and there are still not words in the world to express how terribly she was wronged. For those remaining families whose daughters and sisters were also victims, we hope this means they may yet have their own answers.”

Rob Bovett, the district attorney in Lincoln County, Oregon, said Tuesday by phone that his office now suspects Fowler’s involvement in the deaths of Jennifer Esson and Kara Leas, both 16, who were last seen in January 1995 walking in the middle of the night toward a highway. Their bodies were found the following month in a wooded area north of Newport, Oregon.

Fowler is also a person of interest in the deaths of Sheila Swanson, 19, and Melissa Sanders, 17, whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area near Eddyville, Oregon.

“That’s a fair characterization – he was a violent, nasty person,” Bovett said.

Source

1. Victim Colleen MacMillien, Canada, 1974
victim-colleen-macmillen-Lac-La-Hache-BC-Canada-1974.jpg


2. Canadian news conference.
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3. Victim Kara Leas, 16, Newport, 1995.
victim-kara-leas-16-found-1995-Newport-Ore-US.jpg
 

NightMare

My gift to you, a Nightmare of terror
I have heard of this guy, true creeper too. I would bet money there are way more victims that they haven't found nor will they. It seems that once these guys get a taste for blood they don't slow down until someone slows them down. Fucking guy looks like a killer, nasty. Good thread, thank you again!
 

DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Now that Canadian police have matched Fowler's DNA to Canadian cold case victim, Colleen MacMillien, I think we'll see more activity in the States and in Canada and probably hear more about Bobby Jack Fowler in the months to come.
 

DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
I have heard of this guy, true creeper too. I would bet money there are way more victims that they haven't found nor will they. It seems that once these guys get a taste for blood they don't slow down until someone slows them down. Fucking guy looks like a killer, nasty. Good thread, thank you again!
Yep...I also think that they might end up linking this guy to many more murders, both in the States and in Canada.

The police in western Canada are focusing their renewed investigations on teenage girls that were murdered along BC's 'Highway of Tears', now that his DNA has been confirmed as present on the body of one Canadian girl who was murdered along that desolate stretch of highway back in 1974.
 
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NightMare

My gift to you, a Nightmare of terror
Yep...I also think that they might end up linking this guy to many more murders, both in the States and in Canada.

The police in western Canada are focusing their renewed investigations on teenage girls that were murdered along BC's 'Highway of Tears', now that his DNA has been confirmed as present on the body of one Canadian girl who was murdered along that desolate stretch of highway back in 1974.
I am impressed that they were able to keep DNA from as far back as 1974. I do hope it clears up a lot of cases, I know it can be quite frustrating to have so many unsolved cases. I hope they kept DNA from all of their unknown killer victims. Thanks again DH for the thread, always a pleasure to see you posting new stuff.
 
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