Judge sentences Bowman to death
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[In prison, there's a saying: What goes around comes around. And, so it seems.
Had it not been for a seeming break, a former model prisoner at Menard would probably not be facing death in Missouri.
Had it not been for a reporter attempting to obtain justice for a prisoner she felt unjustly convicted, justice for a murdered teenager would have been denied.
St. Louis County Judge David Vincent III told Gregory Bowman he'd committed cowardly acts and he sentenced him to death Friday.
Bowman, who has spent most of his life as a model prisoner at Menard Correctional Center, was sentenced for the 1977 murder of 16-year old Velda Rumfelt.
Ten of the jurors, who'd recommended the ultimate penalty after finding Bowman guilty on Oct. 22, attended the sentencing. Some of them became emotional, breaking into tears. They spoke to reporters under the cloak of anonymity.
They were stunned when informed of facts kept from them during the trial. Those facts included that Bowman had first been sentenced in 1972 for abducting and sexually assaulting young girls in Danville and Flora. They learned, too, Bowman had been convicted of the brutal rapes and murders of Ruth Ann Jany, 21, of Chester and Elizabeth West, 14, of Belleville. Both crimes occurred in Belleville in 1978.
Bowman was apprehended for attempting to abduct Jeanne Taylor, 30, from a Belleville Laundromat at knife point. Later, while confined at the St. Clair County Jail, Bowman confessed to the murders of Jany and West.
Decades later, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, Carolyn Tuft, learned from a St. Clair County Jailer that Bowman had been tricked into confessing.
The reporter made an issue of the deception and in 2001 Judge Richard Aguirre overturned Bowman's convictions and ordered a new trial. Unable to post bond, Bowman remained in prison until Jan. 26, 2007, when he finally was bonded out to his father.
Less than a week after his release, Bowman was charged with the murder of Velda Rumfelt and taken into custody.
Former Belleville Police Chief James Rokita contacted St. Louis County cold case investigators and provided DNA from Bowman that would eventually be instrumental in convicting him.
St. Clair State Attorney Robert Haida has announced that he will retry Bowman for the Jany and West murders. It isn't known how the Missouri conviction will affect those trials.
Bowman insisted again Friday that he is not guilty. He interrupted the judge at one point saying, "I never, I never…I am not guilty of this."
One of anonymous jurors said, "Thank God we didn't hang the jury. It was like, oh my God, we were right!"