08-13-2011, 02:32 PM
Spiderman Doll used at murder trial.... The Toledo Blade 8/12/2011
With gloved hands, retired Monroe County Sheriff’s Detective Peter Navarre held out a Spiderman doll in Lucas County Common Pleas Court Friday – its ankles and wrists tied together and a needle protruding from its head.
“It was hanging upside down on the door that led to where he was residing,” the retired detective said Friday of the burned-out Florida restaurant where investigators found Robert Bowman living in 1982. “We collected it as evidence.”
Fourteen years after Eileen Adams’ body was found in a frozen Monroe County field with her hands and feet tied and a nail driven through her skull, detectives traveled to southern Florida in search of Bowman, Detective Navarre testified Friday during the second day of testimony in Bowman’s trial that began Monday with jury selection. He then testified about the first interaction police had with the man now on trial for murder in the first degree for the slaying of the 14-year-old Sylvania Township girl.
Detective Navarre referred to a lengthy report he wrote after his interviews with Bowman. In it, he said the defendant did not admit to the 1967 slaying, but did not deny it either.
“During the course of the interview, the defendant stated, ‘To my knowledge, the murder of Eileen occurred in my house. I was there,’ ” the detective read from his report. “He then clarified his statement. ‘I was living there at the time.’ ”
But although several dolls were collected that day — including the head of a Ken doll with a nail protruding from it — and reports were written, Bowman was not arrested, the detective acknowledged when questioned by defense attorney Pete Rost.
In response to Mr. Rost’s questions, the retired investigator also acknowledged that the knots used to tie the Spiderman doll were not similar to those used on the victim and that Bowman did not react to photos of Miss Adams that were shown to him.
“If Robert Bowman admitted in 1982 that he killed Eileen Adams, wouldn’t you have arrested him?” Mr. Rost questioned, generating an affirmative answer from the detective.
“And you didn’t do that?
“No.”
The cold case was revived in 2006 after authorities used DNA results from a reverse paternity test to get an arrest warrant for Bowman. They found him in Riverside, Calif. two years later.
Detective Navarre was one of six witnesses to testify over the two days of testimony. The trial is expected to resume Monday with the testimony of Bowman’s ex-wife, Margaret, who first approached police in 1981 naming her husband as a suspect.
Prior to her testimony, Judge Gene Zmuda is expected to rule on issues of spousal privilege.
The first to testify Friday was Sandra Snoad Jakubec, who rode the Cherry Street bus to school at Central Catholic with her friend, Miss Adams. A freshman at the time of her friend’s disappearance, Mrs. Jakubec recalled riding the bus home on Dec. 18, 1967, with her friend and getting off at her stop as normal.
Her friend was still on the bus talking to someone as the bus drove off, she testified. But she acknowledged that because her stop was first, she never saw Miss Adams exit the bus and did not know where she traveled to that day.
Miss Adams did not make it to her destination. Her body was found was found 43 days later wrapped in a mattress cover and oval braided rug in a field in Monroe County’s Whiteford Township.
As Mrs. Jakubec walked to the witness stand Friday, members of Miss Adams’ family commented in the gallery that they were glimpsing how old she would have looked if she lived.
Miss Adams would have turned 58 years old next month, her older sister noted.
![[Image: SPIDERMAN-HEAD-08-12-2011.jpg]](http://www.toledoblade.com/image/2011/08/12/300x_b1_z_cT_%232285/SPIDERMAN-HEAD-08-12-2011.jpg)
Just horrible!!
With gloved hands, retired Monroe County Sheriff’s Detective Peter Navarre held out a Spiderman doll in Lucas County Common Pleas Court Friday – its ankles and wrists tied together and a needle protruding from its head.
“It was hanging upside down on the door that led to where he was residing,” the retired detective said Friday of the burned-out Florida restaurant where investigators found Robert Bowman living in 1982. “We collected it as evidence.”
Fourteen years after Eileen Adams’ body was found in a frozen Monroe County field with her hands and feet tied and a nail driven through her skull, detectives traveled to southern Florida in search of Bowman, Detective Navarre testified Friday during the second day of testimony in Bowman’s trial that began Monday with jury selection. He then testified about the first interaction police had with the man now on trial for murder in the first degree for the slaying of the 14-year-old Sylvania Township girl.
Detective Navarre referred to a lengthy report he wrote after his interviews with Bowman. In it, he said the defendant did not admit to the 1967 slaying, but did not deny it either.
“During the course of the interview, the defendant stated, ‘To my knowledge, the murder of Eileen occurred in my house. I was there,’ ” the detective read from his report. “He then clarified his statement. ‘I was living there at the time.’ ”
But although several dolls were collected that day — including the head of a Ken doll with a nail protruding from it — and reports were written, Bowman was not arrested, the detective acknowledged when questioned by defense attorney Pete Rost.
In response to Mr. Rost’s questions, the retired investigator also acknowledged that the knots used to tie the Spiderman doll were not similar to those used on the victim and that Bowman did not react to photos of Miss Adams that were shown to him.
“If Robert Bowman admitted in 1982 that he killed Eileen Adams, wouldn’t you have arrested him?” Mr. Rost questioned, generating an affirmative answer from the detective.
“And you didn’t do that?
“No.”
The cold case was revived in 2006 after authorities used DNA results from a reverse paternity test to get an arrest warrant for Bowman. They found him in Riverside, Calif. two years later.
Detective Navarre was one of six witnesses to testify over the two days of testimony. The trial is expected to resume Monday with the testimony of Bowman’s ex-wife, Margaret, who first approached police in 1981 naming her husband as a suspect.
Prior to her testimony, Judge Gene Zmuda is expected to rule on issues of spousal privilege.
The first to testify Friday was Sandra Snoad Jakubec, who rode the Cherry Street bus to school at Central Catholic with her friend, Miss Adams. A freshman at the time of her friend’s disappearance, Mrs. Jakubec recalled riding the bus home on Dec. 18, 1967, with her friend and getting off at her stop as normal.
Her friend was still on the bus talking to someone as the bus drove off, she testified. But she acknowledged that because her stop was first, she never saw Miss Adams exit the bus and did not know where she traveled to that day.
Miss Adams did not make it to her destination. Her body was found was found 43 days later wrapped in a mattress cover and oval braided rug in a field in Monroe County’s Whiteford Township.
As Mrs. Jakubec walked to the witness stand Friday, members of Miss Adams’ family commented in the gallery that they were glimpsing how old she would have looked if she lived.
Miss Adams would have turned 58 years old next month, her older sister noted.
Just horrible!!