The Short Family Murders /// Part 2 /// 603 | Forensic Files

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that's enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true
crime. Mary and Michael Short were found dead in their home on the morning of August
15th, 2002. Their 9-year-old daughter missing from the scene. Apparently abducted after the parents were killed.
And then over 2 weeks later in our investigation's timeline, here we are and there's still no sign of
little Jennifer Short. Now, things really start to get weird here in this investigation. So, in early September of
2002, the sheriff's office engineered the exhumation of Michael Short. Now, they would not
say why and they also did not say why the plan didn't include the exhumation of Mary.
That's strange. But Michael was exhumed and sent to the state medical examiner's office for
forensic testing. The Daily News Leader later reported that court records indicated that Michael was exhumed in
order to collect hairs that were not collected at autopsy. So, this was to right a wrong or to correct
an error. Sheriff Cassell stated that the exhumation was done in order to correct an error, the oversight of not
collecting hairs during the course of the autopsy. But he also commented that test proved
that Mary Short was the biological mother of Jennifer Short, but would not address whether the same was true for
Michael Short. Weird. He said the exhumation had nothing to do with the paternity test
and that investigators knew the answer of whether Michael was Jennifer's dad and the information was important to the
investigation. Okay, so wait a minute here. So, now we are concerned with paternity
test and a double homicide case that involves a missing and presumed abducted 9-year-old kid.
Follow that by a long line of question marks. Right. So, basically they probably
talked to people close to the family and it might have been kind of understood by people close to
them that that Michael wasn't the father. Well, and this is interesting to me, too. And they they have other
reasons for doing this, but let's pretend that they're just simply thinking outside of the box here. You
got to give big kudos here for that as being a possibility, right? Because what's the number one reason for child
abduction in our country? It's based off of custody disputes. That's right. Or a parent who has
taken their own child. Mhm. That happens daily. It's Unfortunately, it's probably
happened several times through the course of recording this episode in our country. And so,
you walk into a scenario and go, "Well, let's assume nothing." And knowing the statistics on
parents abducting their own children, go, "Well, let's double-check and make sure that we have all of our facts
correct before we really start to try to see this scenario for what it actually is."
Well, this case is very strange for multiple reasons. We have two parents dead, we have a missing
child, we have the phone lines being cut, and then we have this message that was left on the answering
machine, which I'm assuming based on what was left we don't know the context of that
message, but I'm guessing that it is directly related to this crime. Or not at all. I mean, this is these
that's one of the items that has disappeared from the reporting over the course of years in this
case and in this investigation that's going on 20 years now. But at this point in the investigation in September, so
just a couple weeks after this case breaks, it looks like police, at least some, are
believing that there is a possible theory here that Mary So, Mary is 14 years younger than Michael. So, were
they working off of a possible theory that she may have had an affair or some type of relationship 9 to 10 years prior
and perhaps Jennifer was not Michael's biological daughter? Right. And maybe the real father
killed Michael and Mary and had come to collect his daughter for good. Well, as it turns out, that was
actually one of the working theories at this time. And keep in mind, they're trying to find this little girl.
Right. Double, triple down on the amount of of stress going on in the situation because
they're not just investigating a double homicide, they're trying to find a little girl. So, clearly
when you're not getting answers, when you can't find her, when you don't have suspects in your double homicide,
you start to get a little desperate. So, it it would be it would be perfectly fine for us to assume that there's some
desperation on the part of investigators at this point in our timeline. Yeah, and I know we give law enforcement
[ __ ] sometimes, but could you imagine having to wake up and knowing that your job is to try to find a 9-year-old that
you know has been taken from her house, that you know her parents have been murdered in their sleep. I mean, that
would be a a stressful job. And it would appear that the agencies working the case didn't simply arrive at
that theory completely on their own. No, because in the course of their investigation, they discovered that a
decade earlier when Mary was working at the Pluma Sewing Factory, she had been harassed by a man on more
than one occasion who seemed to be stalking her. And this was all released to the public
in an article that came out because once this theory grows some legs and starts running here,
now we have a situation where the investigators are going to be asking the public for information. Right. So, this
theory carries some weight, right? One of the investigators, Captain Nester, states in this asking the public for
information article, says he especially hopes that someone will remember an incident that occurred in
1992 or 1993 when a man apparently harassed Mary Short at the Pluma Plant. The man was asked to leave the parking
lot of the Pluma Plant in the Bulls Industry Park on several occasions. Yeah, it makes you wonder if
it's a fair that went wrong. Like maybe she was having an affair with this guy, then she tried to break it off and he's
like, "Not so fast." The man entered the plant on one occasion and Pluma officials
removed him from the property. Police investigating the Short murders acknowledged these incidents and that an
unknown man was angry with Mary. But 10 years prior, that's a long time to hold a grudge.
This man was not recognized by Mary's coworkers, but interestingly, reportedly, Mary had asked for no
charges to be brought against the man. As pointed out by someone on Websleuths, maybe someone believed either that
Jennifer was his daughter or maybe just felt that she should have been his daughter.
Anyway, investigators released a 10-year-old photo of Mary to show to the public to show
what she looked like at the time of these events in hopes that some of her old coworkers may have a memory of these
events and come forward and be able to fill in some of the blanks for investigators. So, yeah, the rough
timing that law enforcement put on this incident 9 to 10 years earlier, it would
appear that this may be what sparked not just the police's theory, but also that
looking into confirming paternity status. I think that this is why law enforcement was checking on Jennifer's
paternity. They thought that that just maybe Mary had actually engaged in relations with this guy and
maybe he thought Jennifer was his daughter or was his daughter. Right. Now, releasing this photo, were they
able to get any leads on this individual? If they were, we do not know of that information. Here's the crazy
thing though, too, and you're right, Captain, that's something that you really want to know more about, isn't
it? Like that's one of the pieces and parts in this investigation that really stands out at the moment and
you go, "Okay." Well, even if even if she had no affair at all, even if no one would have any reason to
believe that Jennifer was their daughter, this is still one of those things that
you want to know more about, especially when you have no real leads, it looks like at this point. And when you have a
situation where you have sheriffs coming forward saying, "We have no suspects." Tell me if I'm correct. You You You just
said a couple minutes ago, "Law enforcement knows the answer to this question, but they're not giving us the answer."
Correct. They're they're sidestepping the the question. They're sidestepping the answer. And there's good reason for
that, and we'll get into that in just in just a minute here, but I should point out, I want to kind of
throw out a counter to what the person on Websleuths says. I don't believe 100% that Mary
And And again, I even question if this even happened, but the statement of Mary said that she
didn't want to press charges against this guy. That would imply to me a few different things. What the person on
Websleuths is saying that it implies to them is that maybe Mary knew this person, felt sympathetic, and didn't
want to press any charges against him or didn't want to call, you know, more attention to the situation. Right. I
look at this a different way. One, I don't believe that maybe there was even an opportunity
for anyone to press charges because it sounds to me like just the simple act of trespassing into the plant, the company
themselves could have pressed charges against this individual. They don't need Mary's permission to do so, number one.
And then number two, where's this guy's name? Where's the paper trail on this dude? If you were to
the point where somebody was questioning, "Should we press charges?" then his identity should be known. And
we can't find anybody that says they know who the hell this guy was from 9 or 10 years prior. So, this would
be '92, 1993. And the other thing though, too, I worked security for a long time. We had
had several individuals that we that we snatched up for trespassing or even harassing people,
and the majority of the time, the person who did not know the person that was trespassing or harassing them
or people in the area, the majority of the time, nobody wanted to be bothered with it.
They just felt like it was a matter for security to handle, and they didn't want
to press charges. So, it's not completely out of character or completely uncommon for a person in this
situation to not press charges. Well, all of this is going to lead us to September 21st, 2002. By this point, we
have Jennifer's aunt and uncle who were appointed as her legal guardians. This by the Henry County
courts and a Henry County judge. Everyone continued to hope against hope that the little girl was coming home and
coming home soon. But then on September 25th, about 5 or 6 weeks after she was abducted, unfortunately, Jennifer was
found and it was not good news. A man named Eddie Albert, who resided off of Grogan Road in Stoneville, North
Carolina, was startled when his dogs, Blue Girl and Zeke, seemed to be playing with what he thought was a wig in his
backyard. He threw it away. Then his 20-year-old grandson found a tennis shoe. A few days later, his
daughter, Lisa, found some teeth, which she assumed were an animal's, but then Eddie's dogs were playing with what they
thought at first was a turtle shell. Well, it wasn't a shell. It was a small human skull with some hair still
attached. Authorities descended on this area, drained a pond that was nearby, and
found more bones scattered about in multiple locations near a small stream on the Albert's property.
The Rockingham County Sheriff said there were small fragments of jaw, teeth, and
other bones strewn all over the place. And quote, "The skull was deemed to be from someone young given its small
size." The Henry County investigators traveled to the area and were sent back with some
hair from the skull to try to match it to hairs from Jennifer's belongings that were collected from the murder scene.
But that's not how the identification was confirmed. It wasn't until early October that DNA tests conducted by a
Virginia laboratory in Roanoke concluded that the remains that were found were that of Jennifer Short, and
she had been shot once in the head just like her parents. She was dumped off of a small bridge into a stream on the
Albert's rural property. Now, we should point out that unfortunately, it's been reported that only about 25 to
maybe 30% of her remains were ever recovered, uh which complicates things, but it
appears that her manner of death was the same as her parents with this single shot to the head. I'm
assuming it's also with a .22. I've not seen any information to indicate with what caliber of bullet they believe
killed the little girl. Right. But now that Jennifer was found, your mind goes immediately to, "All
right, what about those paternity tests?" Well, the paternity test actually showed that
Michael was w a s, was Jennifer's father. And that angle of the investigation led
nowhere. Now, Sheriff Cassell addressed this later when he said that you know, he he he's apologizing for not
conclusively identifying Michael Short as the biological father of Jennifer until a press conference at which
he's stating that DNA test results confirmed that they found Jennifer and she in fact is dead. He's apologizing
saying that if the biological father or the person who thought he was the biological father had
Jennifer in his possession, that the sheriff and his office was afraid that this man would dispose of her
learning that he was not the father. Right. So, just to kind of move on from this idea here because we know that it
in the grand scheme of things, it's it's part of the story, but it doesn't mean so much to our current investigation
into trying to figure out who killed, abducted, and later killed these three people.
Because what he's saying here is, yes, that was an angle that we were working. That was a theory that we had. However,
quickly, once we went down that road of that theory, very quickly, we knew that Michael was the father, but at that
point, we didn't want to publicly announce that because we were working under the idea that Jennifer Short was
still alive, and any news could potentially change that for the investigation, especially if
whoever abducted her was keeping close eyes and close watch on the investigation. Yeah, which I understand,
but also at the same time you could still have an individual out there that thought this is a possibility that she's
my daughter or is 100% convinced that's my daughter and still kidnaps her. Yes, 100%. He
simply apologizing that he had to withhold that information on purpose Right, right.
from everyone during the course of searching for Jennifer Short. But what we have now is we have a second
crime scene. The area where Jennifer's body was found. And this location is about 30 or
so miles south of the Short family's home. Again, this is a rural area. This is Rockingham County, North Carolina.
There was no known connection between this location and anybody in the Short family.
And authorities weren't giving much out as to whether they thought this new location was significant to their
investigation. Now, we have to talk about another sheriff because now we're talking about
another location. Right, another county. So, Sheriff Page, who is known for his tough law and order
type attitude and his love of the cameras, would not comment about whether they thought Jennifer had been killed
where she was found or if she had been killed elsewhere and then later dumped in this location. Nor would he or anyone
else comment on whether evidence indicated the little girl had been sexually assaulted or otherwise
assaulted. Right. To expand on that a little bit here, Captain, this is one of those things
where it's so incredibly frustrating and spoiler alert, there are a lot of people out
there that know this case, so we're not going to hide from the fact that it's 20 years later, it's still
unsolved. But this is one of those things where you go, it's been all these years later,
there's so much that they have withheld from the public. Can can we can we start to release some of this
information? Is it probably too late to really have any meaningful impact on the
investigation to release any of this information now? Could be, but you know, here we sit 20 years later. We have a
lot of a lot of questions about the Short family's home, that crime scene, but we now have questions about this
secondary crime scene, the crime scene where the little girl was eventually found. We don't know whether clothing
was found. Uh we do know that she was skeletonized by this point. We do know that bones
were scattered. They could not tell whether she was assaulted. No one has reported on when
Jennifer was killed. We don't know if she was killed the same night that she was abducted or days later or weeks
later. Right. Skeletonized to me would indicate that she was probably killed weeks before the body was found. Yeah,
at least. And it might even indicate that she was killed shortly after the time that she was abducted. Well, I
agree with you. They have some stuff that maybe they could release, but let's say this tape
this voice message is connected to the crime. The problem with releasing that, because
that could be a possible identifier of of the murderer's voice, it's but what is the content of that
message and is that appropriate to release to the public? Yeah, it's difficult to say cuz we don't
know what that message is. We don't know if it is even connected at all to this case.
But don't you so badly just want to hear that message? Um yeah, there's there's a
lot of things that I would like to know in this case. I would like to know more about the bodies being found at the
home. Right. I would like to know more about things like clothing. I would want to know if there was any indication if
the killer or killers spent any amount of time in the home. And and I you know, any somebody out there is going, well,
of course they spent some time in the home, Colonel. Right. No duh. Uh thanks. Uh I what I mean is
Thanks. how long were they in there? You know, it's it it's one of those crimes where you go, okay, there's
there's efforts made to carry out this crime, the cutting of the phone lines, the avoiding of taking the money.
There's very weird things about this crime that indicate to me that the person or persons responsible did not
want to spend any length of time in the home. Yeah, shots to the head. But then we had Yeah, then we had the weird
statement of, well, there was there might have been somebody that wrote something with their finger
somewhere on a on a window. There might have been an obscene message that was left on the
answering machine tape. It to me, like I also see a scenario too where if that answering machine tape is of any
importance, why it wasn't just grabbed by the killer on his way out of the home would make a lot of sense to me. I mean,
you went to the trouble of cutting the phone lines. But of course that's why in part some of these cases
are still unsolved. It's not meant to make sense to all of us. It's not meant to make sense to you and I when we sit
here again elevated 30,000 ft above looking down on the scenario trying to make heads or tails of things.
But there was a suspect that came onto the radar shortly after the little girl's remains were found.
So, the Daily News Leader put out an article on the case dated October 5th that says investigators say they have
not made any arrests, but want to interview a man who lived in the county where Jennifer Short's remains were found and
whose rented house and mobile home were recently searched. All right, welcome back everybody.
Cheers to you all. Cheers to the people in the back. And the ones in the front row.
Just the front, not the second row. row, screw you. Kind of stinky. This person that comes on the radar here,
Captain, his name is Garrison Bowman, age 66. And this is somebody that we will learn was
it sounds like a tip is received just a couple days after the murders that indicates that Garrison Bowman, age
66, is someone that police should be looking at. And this tip came in from a man named Gary Lemons.
He called the police and named a tenant or a former tenant of his, depending on how you want to look at the situation,
as being somebody that they should look at. So, the News and Record reported they got their hands on a search warrant
of the home that Bowman was renting from this uh Gary Lemons. And it sounds more like he was renting the
property, but we'll get into that here in just a minute. So, according to the search warrants,
his former landlord, Gary Lemons, he's Harrison Bowman's former landlord, said that Bowman told him
that he had paid an unnamed mobile home mover. Remember, Michael Short owns a mobile home moving company.
Gary Lemons says that Bowman told him that he had paid an unknown unnamed mobile home mover in Virginia, again,
where the Shorts live, to move a mobile home he owned, but that the man never moved it.
And that either the mobile home mover is going to pay him his money back or he's
going to move the trailer or I'm going to have to kill the son of a [ __ ] This is what Lemons tells police that
Bowman told him. Well, there's your motive. And he states that Bowman told him this via a phone conversation. And
of course, as we pointed out, Michael Short owned a mobile home moving company in Virginia. We should be clear here
because some people might be scratching their heads a bit, but Gary Lemons and Harrison Bowman live in North Carolina.
Now, Lemons Gary Lemons said that on the night of August 15th, this is the day that the Short family was killed, uh
that he went to the home of Harrison Bowman and Bowman confronted him and at that time
he was carrying a gun and ordered Gary Lemons off of his property. Sometime before that day, Lemons said he
saw Harrison Bowman drilling holes in the passenger section of the Ford alkaline van he drove and placing a
false bottom in the van. Harrison Bowman left for Canada the day after the shootings.
Also found was a map that was left behind in this abandoned home was marked with a red X in the
approximate location of the Shorts home in Henry County, Virginia. Before he left, Harrison Bowman gave
some of his belongings away including $10,000 worth of carpentry tools and his mobile home which he moved to a site on
Webster Road. Jennifer Short's remains were found on Grogan Road. This just about a mile from
the Webster Road site. Gary Lemons had called in this tip about Harrison Bowman just two or three days
after the murders. Authorities searched the home and mobile home and he had vacated and started trying to track him
down and the FBI had spoken to Harrison Bowman on the phone from Canada asking him about the case. And look, they're
probably also looking for that .22. But it won't be that hard for this individual to discard that weapon
because there's quite a bit of distance between him and and where the murders took place. Yeah, we have about 30 miles
or so. We also have a good distance between where he used to live and where he is found in Canada. One thing that we
should point out though that that Bowman was not Look, he's in another country. He could
dodge them fairly easily and he spoke to them on the phone, the investigators on
the phone several times. This shortly after the tip comes in. Remember they when these tips come in,
when they first start looking at Harrison Bowman, they've not found Jennifer Short yet.
And so he basically tells law enforcement, "Yeah, I moved from the area. I'm in Canada now. This is where I
am if you need to get a hold of me in the future, but I don't know who the the Shorts are. I don't know who that family
is. I I've never been to that area that I can recall. Henry County, Virginia, Highway 220, I've never been to that
area. If you need to get a hold of me, this is how you can get a hold of me going forward, but basically I have no
knowledge of this crime. Nothing to help you with your investigation." That seems to be good enough for
investigators early on. What's not good enough is once they find Jennifer Short's body. Yeah, that connects her
way more to this suspect. They find her body, part of her remains located about a mile
from the site where he moved his mobile home to before leaving the area. Oh, and by the
way, the FBI said that the person you're looking for might want to get out of dodge, might want to
flee the area shortly after the crimes. Well, I think as humans, law enforcement, armchair detectives,
whatever you want to call us, two dumbasses in the garage, when you see a crime like this, this is
a awful crime. Two parents dead and a abduction of a young girl later found dead, you you don't want to
think that it's over something so simple as "Well, I wanted this guy to move my trailer and he didn't want to."
Or possibly couldn't. Or took my money. Right. Yeah, it just doesn't seem like it adds
up or should add up. But obviously the evidence is starting to point in this direction. On October
3rd, Harrison Bowman was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Una Vic, which is a town north of the
Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories. He had been arrested in Canada on August
31st for drunk driving and his failure to disclose previous criminal convictions in the US related to
Canadian immigration laws. So, the way that this works, Captain, is when he went across the border, he is
supposed to let them know, "Hey, you know, have you ever been convicted of of a serious crime
where you're coming from?" And he says, "No." But when he was arrested on August 31st in Canada for
drunk driving, what they learn is, well, he had in fact been arrested for a DUI arrest
back when he lived in the States. So, he lies to immigration and violates Canada's
immigration laws by not disclosing of that previous DUI arrest. So, now he's arrested October 3rd, but
he's arrested simply for the the reasons of holding him to deport him back to the States, but
also so he can be transferred to the custody of the persons individ- investigating the
triple homicide case. So, Bowman was held in Canada and the US authorities investigating the Short
murders flew up there to talk with him. They went through all of his belongings while he was held pending deportation
back to North Carolina. They publicly announced that they were talking to him as a material witness, not as a suspect
in the Short murders. On October 15th of 2002, by then Bowman was deported and he
arrived back in Virginia back in Virginia by October 22nd of that year. Now, Harrison Bowman, for his part, he
swore up and down that he had no idea who the Shorts were. He had no idea what had happened to them. He didn't even
understand why he was being wrapped up in this whole thing. He denied saying any of those menacing things
about a mobile home mover to his landlord. He said, "I never said that I was going to have to kill a mobile home
mover. I never discussed a mobile home mover with my landlord." Why would this guy just make this up? He also states
that when the landlord came to his home and says that I I was holding a gun and told
him to leave the property, "Well, that didn't happen either. I don't even own a gun.
I've never owned a gun." And he stated too, he goes, "Look, I get that it looks awfully suspicious that these people
were killed and I'm up here in Canada, but I was planning to move to Canada for months. This wasn't just something that
I just decided and and moved here after they were killed. I was planning on moving here for months. The timing for
me is just bad. The timing is just a coincidence for your investigation." So, that was his defense, but it appears
that there was some circumstantial evidence that Bowman might have just killed the
Short family. Again, he lived very close to where Jennifer's body was found. That's a bizarre coincidence because
this really is out in the middle of nowhere. He also owned a mobile home that indeed
was in the process of being relocated and Michael Short owns that mobile home moving company. Mhm. But it doesn't seem
like police were able to find anything physically at his former residence or in his possession when they pick him up in
Canada that would tie him directly to this case, to these crimes, the triple homicide.
Well, I'd love to see this asshat's phone records. Well, he's certainly being looked at in this case and looked
at quite well. Again, back to his defense here, you know, he's saying that he left for Canada, but that was well
planned. It was something that he had planned for months. And he he also denied again stating that
that he would have to kill the man that he paid in Virginia to move his mobile home,
that if he didn't do the job or he didn't get his money refunded, he would have to kill him. So, he denies this. He
says, "Look, couple problems with this story is the statement about me killing a
Virginia man to move my mobile home because he cheated me, that never happened."
He said that he had arranged for his mobile home to be moved onto his buddy John Beasley's property for storage.
And Harrison Bowman intended to give the mobile home to a person named Lori Butler, who is a friend and former
employee of his who lived in Michigan. And we should also point out that prior to this, that Harrison Bowman had been
to Canada several times before and had had also been to Alaska. So, it's not like he's just
up and up and leaving his life. This is something he's contemplated probably for
a while. Not only that, he's saying that some of this suspicion that is cast onto
him from his previous landlord, Gary Lemons, is based off of a dispute that two of
them had leading up to the time that he was going to leave. So, he was planning on leaving the area,
according to Bowman, and and going to move to Canada. And so, he's an older man at this point. I He's 66 years old.
And it sounds to me, Captain, like his plan was, "Well, I'm I'm kind of done. I'm going to kind of retire and it's
always been a dream of mine to live up in Canada. Now's the time for me to do this."
So, what we see by this individual is not only is he leaving this area, he's rented this property from this Gary
Lemons for years. Right. Uh well over a decade that I could find. And he says that the dispute happened
one because Gary kind of turned on him once he was going to no longer be renting from him.
He was going to lose a renter. But he also says, "Look, Gary just assumed that he was going to inherit
my mobile home. That when I leave the area he would just take possession of it because I wouldn't be taking it with
me." And so there he said that a lot of this stems from a dispute over this mobile home. To me, that's a little
difficult to believe that somebody would try to mark you up and frame you for triple homicide.
I don't think framed is a good word. Maybe this happened and then Gary Lemons just got suspic- suspicious of this guy
for for one reason or another. But what we do know about the situation is it does appear that he had been making
these arrangements for some time. He had gifted the mobile home to a friend. He was giving away approximately $10,000
worth of tools. So that was his old business. He no longer needs that business because
he's retiring and moving to Canada. So some of his actions prior to the triple homicide would indicate that
there may be some truth to his defense. Yeah, but I think this guy would have to
admit that there's definitely a couple things pointing in two his direction. It's not just all
fabric- fabricated. So we have a suspect. But the this Chris Thompson guy, the Michael's employee, the one that was
there the night before, and then the one that found them. Um I I wish we knew more about him.
And and why law law enforcement hasn't brought him into the forefront. Well, yeah. I mean they they looked at
him several times. They've interviewed him several times over the course of the years. We don't know a lot about Chris
Thompson. That's for certain. But the other thing here though, too, we're not ready to move off of this Harrison
Bowman. Because as you said he you, me, and everybody else involved would agree that there seems to be some
reason, some possibly good reasons for them to be looking at him and considering them him as their prime
suspect. Right. So I mean he's not just arrested and sent back for his violation of of
Canadian immigration laws. No, he's he's sent back because of that violation, but
he's also sent back for the purpose of investigating him in this triple homicide.
And we have the sheriff's offices as well as the FBI who interrogate Harrison Bowman for
approximately 3 and 1/2 hours. And he ends up telling uh a local newspaper afterwards. He said, "Look, Nestor."
He's referring to one of the sheriffs. "Nestor told me right out, you did it. I know you did it." Bowman said, "I looked
him right in the eye and said I didn't do it. I I know I didn't do it, and God knows I
didn't do it." And that was the end of the interview. Now, in Virginia, Harrison Bowman faced
a federal judge who ruled he could be held pending his appearance before the grand jury. But on the 30th, both
prosecutors and the defense lawyers asked that he be released as long as he promised to appear before the federal
grand jury on November 12th. Okay, so one thing we need to point out though, too
is even though this dude was in Canada he wasn't dodging police. The police made it well known that they
were looking for Harrison Bowman well before they spoke with Harrison Bowman. Right. So the way that this guy is
saying he's not dodging them. He's not dodging them at all. And again, he was in a whole different country. It would
have been I'm guessing fairly easy for him to dodge them or to delay them finding him.
Right. But what happens is remember the person that he was gifting the mobile home to who lived in Michigan?
She becomes aware that they are looking for her friend Harrison Bowman. She knows where he is in Canada. She reach
out to him and said, "Hey, there was a murder down there in Virginia, in South Virginia, right
before you left for Canada, and the police are actively saying that they would like to interview you as a
possible witness." Right. He contacts police, Harrison Bowman. Not the other way around. It wasn't
police that contacted him. He figures out how to get in touch with the law enforcement agency that is investigating
this homicide, and he reaches out to them. So the friends of Garrison Bowman Gary Lemons pointed the finger at him in
this August 15th slayings of the Virginia family. That this is all based off of an angry
landlord who wanted Garrison Bowman's mobile home and had ordered him to move out weeks before Bowman left Rockingham
County for Canada. The landlord Gary Lemons was furious because Bowman deeded his 1966 mobile home to a friend in
Michigan instead of leaving it for Lemons when Bowman left Rockingham County in August. This based off of the
two longtime friends of Garrison Bowman. So the two friends are John Beasley and
this Lori Butler. We've mentioned both of them already. They're coming to Garrison Bowman's defense here.
And they state that the situation is this, that Gary Lemons the landlord is ordering Bowman off of the property.
And Rockingham County where they live does not allow mobile homes built before 1976 to be moved and set up again within
the county according to the county planning department. That's why Bowman gave it to a friend
out of state according to Lori Butler, the person that he gave it to. His only option for keeping what was
val- you had a $15,000 mobile home in Rockingham County would have been to leave it hooked up on Gary Lemons'
property. So does that make sense to everybody out there that this guy was in a situation where either he has to move
this trailer, this mobile home, and gift it to somebody out of state, or he would be
either forced to sell it to his landlord Gary Lemons or just leave it there. And Gary Lemons would take possession of
it. And Gary Lemons would know all of this. So if he were to try to sell it to him
well, he would be almost forced to sell it to Gary Lemons for whatever price Lemons wanted to offer
to him. Well, you said that there were threats, but are these threats only heard by one
individual? The only person that reported these threats was Gary Lemons. And in his defense, Bowman states
"Look, I I didn't know who Michael Short was. I never hired Michael Short to move
my trailer." He says that he hired a mobile home mover in Eden. Although this is not great for Bowman,
he was unable to provide the name of the person that he hired in Eden. But he does go on to state on record saying,
"Look, you don't get somebody from Virginia to come down to North Carolina to move your trailer. You get somebody
local." And he says he's a contractor himself. And he states, "As a contractor I know
you never pay somebody in advance, or you can just kiss that money goodbye." So he's saying
"Look, based off of the threat, I don't pay people in advance, especially contractors, to do work for me." Right.
There would be no reason for me to get revenge on somebody because I would never pay them in advance. He also goes
on to point out what is just simply fact here is Michael Short on Michael Short's end
they don't find anything paperwork or otherwise to suggest that he did any work for
Bowman. Right. Or that he was scheduled to do any work for Bowman, or that he collected any kind of payment from
Bowman. And Bowman states, "Look, Michael Short he doesn't have a license to do this
kind of work in North Carolina. I live in a different state than Michael Short."
And then as far as the threatening Gary Lemons with the handgun, telling him to get you know, off of his property or or
away from his home he simply states, "I never owned a gun, so that's not true. I've never borrowed a gun, so that's not
true." On the allegations that he had some kind of secret compartment that he built in his
van Bowman said he had no idea how to build a false floor on the bottom of the van. Bowman's 2001 Ford van that he took
to Canada well, they searched it. It's pretty easy for law enforcement to determine he did
not put a false floor in that van. There was no secret compartment that was built
into that van. So where this idea Gary Lemons came up with however he arrived at that idea, he did
tell that information to law enforcement, and law enforcement can look at that van and know, well, this
this one part at the very least, you know, we have a lot of he said he said situations
here, but this one part is not true. This one statement that Gary Lemons gave us about Bowman building a false floor
and a secret compartment in his van, well, that's just simply not true. Right, it's a lie. So, we could then
assume that some of these other accusations against him that like point him to be a a good suspect are also
lies. The other thought, too, he states about Canada. He says, "I wasn't running
from anything. That was my third trip up in that country. I was going to Canada with the idea of moving to Canada. I
just love it up there. I love the people. I love the country." Bowman said that he had been planning
the trip for months and had given some of his tools to friends weeks before he left and that was proof that he was
leaving. Bowman's friends, John Beasley and Danny Sizemore, have both corroborated this portion of his story
uh both the law enforcement and publicly in the media. About the map. Now, remember there was a
map on it and what the media was reporting was that this map had an X that marked the spot on the map and this
was the same location as where the Shorts' home would have been located on on that map. And Bowman basically says,
"Look, I I don't have an explanation for the map. I can't give you a great answer
why they would have a map with an X on it where the Shorts' family home was located and and found this map
in a place that I previously rented." Right. He did say that it was he believed it was his map.
He said that he was an avid canoe-er and that he would typically underline he would make a single line of locations
that he canoe-ed or wanted to canoe. So, again, he's he's saying, "I don't I'm not denying that you found a map in
my previously rented home. I'm just don't understand what the X is. And I understand that that that X may
implicate me for a triple homicide, but I don't make X's on maps. I make a single line." He did point out that
maybe his ex-wife may have marked an X on the map at one point for some reason or other. She was
interviewed and states that she does not recall ever marking an X on a map belonging to
Bowman. But then later we find out that while this whole X marks the spot of the triple homicide
on the map seems very shady, a huge red flag on the part of Bowman, we learn that
that was not really 100% truthfully reported in the media. It was sensationalized a bit.
They did find a map with an X on it and the X was somewhat near where the Shorts' home would be located.
However, after looking at the map, they determined that it would be approximately 5 miles from where the
Shorts lived. So, while it sounded good in the papers, it's not going to sound so great in a
court of law. And the other thing, too, this is found after Bowman left the area.
It's a possibility that somebody else put that X on that map. It's a possibility that Gary Lemons put
the X on that map. Yeah, it seems like there's some things to make some things of evidence to make you want to look
into this individual, but it doesn't seem like a lot of them stick or hold up. And but then you just wonder why would
this guy, just because they had a dispute, he would want this individual looked into to this
double homicide? Well, the thing here is we have a lot of he said he said scenarios within this situation. We do
have things that were proven to be wrong, allegations by Gary Lemons that were proven to be not factual, not
correct. But Gary Lemons wasn't the only one he was not the only one that was pointing the finger at Bowman for these
homicides. In fact, what we had was we have three men, Timothy Sampson, Jerry Mills and Tony Epperson,
who two of these three men came forward and stated that they may have seen Bowman leaving the murder scene the
night of the double homicide. We have Mr. Sampson who began anonymously contacting
a Captain Bobby Lawson of the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office in August of 2003.
So, this is a year after the murders. Mr. Sampson claimed that he and another man, Mr. Mills,
had been scouting an area near the Short home to conduct burglaries. And the date given on this, he states,
is August 15th, 2002. He states that when they were out there, he and Mr. Mills heard two gunshots
coming from the Short family home. He then claimed that he saw a man who resembled Abraham Lincoln,
later identified as Gary Bowman, carrying a child who was wearing a nightgown from the Short home. I'm
sorry. So, when you have this he said he said scenario going on and you don't know who's right and who's wrong, one
guy defending himself, one accusing the other, now we have these witnesses coming
forward that somebody matching Bowman's description was seen by these guys carrying
a child wearing a nightgown from the home after hearing two gunshots. Well, that's probably most damning piece
of evidence against him is would be these eyewitnesses. Well, and you're right here, Captain. It
looks very bad for Garrison Bowman that now we have these witnesses saying that they saw him fleeing the scene
carrying the the the child with him as he's leaving the scene. There's all kinds of problems though
with this investigation. And not just on the Garrison Bowman front. So, looking at the Garrison Bowman portion
of this, we we have people coming forward telling law enforcement, "Look, this guy he's he's would have been 66
years old at the time. We've known him forever. We've never known him to be violent. We've never
known him to carry a gun. So, we question all these things that this Gary Lemons is saying about him. Oh, by the
way, we do know that and this is fact we know that Garrison Bowman took a polygraph test. We do not know the
actual results of the that test. What we do know is Garrison or Gary Bowman has said on record that he was told that
he passed that polygraph, but we only have his word to take for it because police have never commented on that
polygraph test. But now we have these witnesses who are saying, "We see him leaving the area."
The problem though becomes there must not have been that great of a case against Garrison Bowman because it goes
to a grand jury and they decide that there is not enough evidence or enough reason to charge him in the crime.
And he's present and he's cooperating for all of these parts and pieces of this investigation. What we end up
having happen is that in 2005, this is in March of 2005. Three men, Timothy Sampson, Jerry Mills
and Tony Epperson, were indicted for making up a bunch of lies to try to collect reward money in this case.
Which is just sad because you want to believe eyewitnesses. You don't You don't want to believe that they just
came forward to put try to put the nail on somebody's coffin so they can get some money.
It's a pretty despicable and not honorable people. WFMY News 2 had coverage on the story. They
state, "Investigators say Sampson, Mills and Epperson all lied to officers about
what they observed the night the Short family was murdered. According to the indictment, Sampson and Mills told
police that they were in Bassett, Virginia the night of the Short family murders. The two told investigators they
were scoping out the area for a possible burglary. Sampson claimed he heard two gunshots coming from inside the Shorts'
home and then saw a man resembling Abraham Lincoln carrying a child and a gun out of the house. Sampson later
identified the man as Gary or Garrison Bowman. Investigators say this whole story is a lie made up by Sampson and
Mills. In addition, the indictment alleges Sampson and Mills also made threats against two law enforcement
officers working the case. Both of these officers have had their lives threatened simply because they
were doing their job by investigating the case, says John Brownlee, US Attorney for the Western District of
Virginia. Timothy Sampson, 40 at the time, of Rudolph County, is charged with threatening to
kill two law enforcement officers and forcing his daughter to falsely testify in the case. Also, Jerry Mills,
42 of Guilford County, is accused of conspiracy, perjury, and providing false information. Tony Epperson, age 32 of
Stokes County, is accused of providing false information to the task force investigating the murders. So, not only
do police not believe their story of these witnesses, they don't believe them so much that
they can prove that they lied to police and charged them with conspiracy, with perjury, with
providing false information. Right. And one of the d-bags goes out of his way to threaten the lives of two of the
law enforcement officers working the homicide case. Yeah, what d-bags. These d-bags now have become p-bags and
we're going to look at them as suspects. Now, we won't go into the trials and convictions of these Yahoo's.
The US attorney, John Brownlee, said of the men, "Mr. Sampson's conviction makes it clear
that we will not tolerate anyone lying to investigators or wasting government resources in this manner.
And Mr. Epperson provided false information to investigators during 17, that's 17, 17 separate interviews. He
wasted the investigators valuable time and caused them to spend limited resources."
Join us back here in the garage. It's always exciting when the case turns into a three-parter. So much more to get to.
Stick around until then. Be good, be kind, and don't litter.

The Short Family Murders /// Part 2 /// 603

Part 2 of 3

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Around 9AM August 15th, 2002 a man named Chris Thompson went to his employer’s home. This was a scheduled work day and Chris was to be there at the home to start work that morning. When he arrived Chris found the overhead garage door to the home open. He found his boss inside the garage, dead. Michael Short had been shot once in the head. Inside the Henry County Sheriff’s department located Michael’s wife Mary. She too had been shot once in the head. As if things weren’t already bad enough, the Sheriff’s department could not locate the Short’s 9 year old daughter. What was the motive here in this double homicide? Where was the little girl? Join us in our Garage as we take a deep dive and look at a case that is now 20 years old and 20 years unsolved. This week we spotlight this case and the investigation that ensued over the years. Plus we look at some theories and suspects.

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Brief Summary

The Short family murders involve a double homicide and the abduction of their daughter Jennifer, whose remains were found weeks later.

Key points

The Mysterious Exhumation. In a strange turn, Michael Short was exhumed for forensic testing, raising questions about the investigation.
The Discovery of Jennifer's Remains. Tragically, Jennifer Short's remains were found weeks after her abduction, confirming the worst fears.
Paternity Tests Confirmed. DNA tests confirmed Michael Short was Jennifer's father, complicating the investigation further.
The Mystery Message. The unknown message related to the case raises questions and curiosity.
Bowman's Arrest. Harrison Bowman was arrested in Canada and later deported back to Virginia.
Garrison Bowman's Alibi. Bowman claims he was planning to move to Canada for months before the murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You walk into a scenario and go, 'Well, let's assume nothing.'.

Emphasizing the need for thorough investigation.

5:42WatchOct 18, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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