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

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[Music] Mary and Michael Short were found dead in their home on the morning of August
15 2002 their 9-year-old daughter missing from the scene apparently abducted after the parents were killed
and then over two weeks later in our investigations timeline here we are and there's still no sign of little Jennifer
SH 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 examiners 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
write a wrong or to correct an error Sheriff Cassel 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 exclamation 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 patern 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 talk 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 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 the 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 uh 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 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 double triple down on the amount of of
stress going on in this 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 and 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
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 affair 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 that's a long time to hold a grudge this
man was not recognized by Mary's co-workers but interestingly reportedly Mary had asked for no charges to be
brought against the man as pointed out by someone on webo 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 and hopes that some of her
old co-workers 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 Sid stepping the the question they're Sid stepping 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 web SLO 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 webo is saying that it
implies to them is that maybe 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 common for a person in the situation to not press charges well all
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 but then on September
25th about five 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 animals 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 end 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 did from the murder scene but that's not how the identification
was confirmed it wasn't until early October the DNA tests conducted by a Virginia laboratory in
ronoke 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 Alberts ryal Pro 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 the 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 was was Jennifer's father and that angle
of the investigation LED nowhere now Sheriff casselle 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 that 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 ER in his possession that the sheriff in 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's simply apologizing that he had to to withhold that information on purpose from everyone during the course of
searching for Jennifer sh 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 Paige 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 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 skeleton eyes 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 because 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 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 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 person's
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 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 Tales 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 arrest but want to interview a man who lived in the county where Jennifer schz remains were found
and whose rented house and mobile home were recently [Music] searched this show is sponsored by better help do
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the people in the back and the ones in the front row just the front not the second row second 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 lemon says that Bowman told him that he had paid an unknown unnamed mobile home mover in
Virginia I 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 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 lemon's off of his property
sometime before that day lemon 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 $110,000 worth of carpentry tools and his mobile home which he moved to a site on Webster Road Jennifer schz
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 3 days after the murders authorities had searched the home and mobile home and he
had vac 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 wouldn'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 uh 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's
basically tells law enforcement yeah I move 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 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 schar'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 what I think as
humans law enforcement armchair detectives whatever you want to call us two dumb asses in the garage when you
see a crime like this this is a awful crime two parents dead in 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 unic 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 o 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 move 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 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 circumstance
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 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 Assad'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
virgin 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 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
on to him from his previous landlord Gary lemons is based off of a dispute the 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 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 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 susp suspicious of this guy for for one reason or another but
what we do know about the situation is it doesn't 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 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 I
would have to admit that there's definitely a couple things pointing into his Direction it's not just all Fab
fabricated so we have a suspect but this 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 as their Prime Suspect right so I mean he's not just arrested and sent back for his violation of the 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 three and a half hours and he ends up telling a a local
newspaper afterward he said look Nester he's referring to one of the sheriffs Nester 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 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 you're 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 and Canada she
reached 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 slangs of the Virginia family that this was 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 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 Lor Butler the person that he gave it to his only option for keeping what was valued
at a $115,000 mobile home in Rockingham County would have been to leave it hooked up on Gary lemon's 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 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
sha and then as for 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 in 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 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 seore have both corroborated
this portion of his story both the law enforcement and publicly in the media about the map now remember there was 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 canoer and that he would typically underline he would
make a single line of locations that he canoed 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 exwife 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 learned 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 that 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
Samson Jerry Mills and Tony erson 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
Samson 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 Samson claimed that he and another
man Mr Mills had been scouting an area near 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 night gown from the short home I'm sorry this
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 night gown from the home after hearing two gunshots
well that's probably the 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 problemo 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 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 th 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 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 Samson Jerry Mills and Tony erson 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 uh pretty despicable and not honorable people
WFMY News 2 had coverage on the story they State investigators say Samson Mills and erson all lied to officers
about what they observed the night the short family was murdered according to the indictment Samson and Mills told
police that they were in betet Virginia the night of the short family murders the two told investigators they were
scoping out the area for a possible burglary Samson claimed he heard two gunshots coming from inside the schs
home and then saw a man resembling Abraham Lincoln carrying a child and a gun out of the house Samson later
identified the man as Gary or Garrison Bowman investigators say this whole story is a lie made up by Samson and
Mills in addition the indictment alleges Samson 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 brownley us attorney for the Western District of Virginia Timothy Samson 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 erson aged 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 charg them with conspiracy
with perjury with providing false information right and one of the deags goes out of
his way to threaten the lives of two of the law enforcement officers working the
homicide case yeah what deags these deags now have become peab bags and we're going to look at them as suspects
now we won't go into the trials and convictions of these yahoos the US Attorney John brownley
said of the men Mr Samson's conviction makes it clear that we will not tolerate anyone lying to investigators or wasting
government resources in this manner and Mr erson 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
[Music] resources [Music] join us back here in the garage it's always exciting when the case turns into
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go

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 episode details the Short family murders and the investigation into suspect Garrison Bowman, highlighting the complexities and challenges faced by law enforcement.

Key points

The Mysterious Exhumation. In 2002, the Sheriff's Office exhumed Michael Short without explaining why, 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 Test Results. The investigation revealed that Michael Short was indeed Jennifer's father, complicating the case further.
The Unsolved Mystery. The case remains perplexing with many unanswered questions about the crime scene.
A New Suspect Emerges. Harrison Bowman comes onto the radar shortly after the murders, raising suspicions.
Bowman's Arrest. Harrison Bowman is arrested in Canada, raising questions about his involvement in the murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

So now we are concerned with paternity test and a double homicide case.

Discussion about the implications of the paternity test in the case.

5:27WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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