Jury finds Charles Bowman guilty of murder

Charles Eugene Bowman, age 63, was found guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence on Friday evening after his trial in Marion County. The jury took approximately an hour of deliberation before returning with their verdict.

On June 27, 2018, Pearl River County deputies visited the Bowman residence at 68 Owl Hoot Road, Perkinston, MS (Barth community in Pearl River County), to perform a welfare check on Kathleen Bowman after receiving a call from concerned family members that they had not heard from her, but deputies only found her husband Charles there at the residence.

Charles Bowman told the deputies that Kathleen was on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and would be back later. When the deputies and investigators returned later with a search warrant, Bowman was gone. That’s when authorities found Kathleen’s skeletal remains.

Bowman fled across the country, but was arrested by U.S. Marshals at a campground in Utah on July 12, 2018. Investigators said Bowman was still driving the Nissan Maxima he left Mississippi in when he was arrested in Utah.

Bowman was extradited to Mississippi in September 2018.

Bowman's sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 23, 2020, before Circuit Court Judge Prentiss G. Harrell in Poplarville, MS.