Fred dinenage (narrates): In may 1994,
the body of 72-year-old world war ii veteran, Milton Bradley
was discovered on a golf course on Savannah, Georgia.
He had been savagely murdered by a mysterious stranger
who had vanished without a trace.
At the time, nobody could tell me
that they had a murder with similar circumstances
or a suspect matching the mystery man or mystery person,
the drifter who showed up in Savannah,
was last seen with Bradley, and was now gone.
The killer was Gary ray bowles,
a 32-year-old transient with an apparent hatred of gay men.
He would go on to claim
two more victims after the murder of Milton Bradley.
Anybody who came onto bowles's radar,
anybody who formed part of his life, who became a significant individual
was somebody who was in danger from him
because he's somebody who has no respect for other people.
He doesn't see other people's lives as valuable.
After slaying more victims
with impunity up and down the i-95 highway,
bowles was finally apprehended
after killing Jacksonville beach resident Jay hinton,
by brutally caving in his skull with a cinder block.
He targeted perfectly innocent, perfectly upright,
perfectly reasonable men.
He's ruthless, wicked, depraved and relentless.
Gary ray bowles, the i-95 killer,
had run out of road
and been discovered as one of the world's most evil killers.
(Theme music)
In November, 1994,
32-year-old Gary ray bowles
confessed his vicious killing spree to detectives.
Over the previous eight months,
bowles had taken the lives of six men across three states,
most of his murders had happened just off interstate 95
on the east coast of the us.
One of the investigators
who helped to identify bowles as a serial killer
was rookie detective, John best.
What are the chances,
your first murder
you are going to get a guy that kills six men
up and down the east coast of the United States
becomes a 10 most wanted fugitive?
Then, you get to interview him...
And he gets...
Put to death...
As a result of these crimes.
And here we are 27 years later,
and we are still talking about Gary ray bowles.
So, it stays in your head.
Bowles was finally captured after the murder of Jay hinton
in Jacksonville beach, Florida.
Detective Joe Collins spent days speaking with the killer
after a stunning confession,
in which bowles admitted to killing all six of his victims.
Initially, when you get close to somebody,
and you're talking, you have a rapport going...
And you want to keep that going,
you think, you know, "this isn't a bad guy."
You know, I guess he screwed up a little bit or something.
I don't know but we were talking like two guys drinking a beer
on the beach or something.
Until I pulled out the photographs of my victim,
and all that went away.
Bowles left a trail of blood and destruction wherever he went.
Every single crime scene was overkill.
It's not like one shot, one stab wound.
I just think that that rage,
and when you throw in some alcohol and drugs,
that...
Created a monster.
This killer's story begins in Clifton forge, Virginia.
Gary ray bowles was born on the January 25, 1962.
He was raised by his mother
and a succession of different father figures in Rupert, West Virginia.
Bowles never knew his real father
because he died before bowles was born.
So, this was something that had a significant impact on his life,
as it does on many children in this situation.
There are lots of kids whose fathers die before they're born.
This isn't a prescription for serial murder,
but it's what his father was replaced with,
which is the issue in this case.
Two of bowles' stepfathers violently abused the youngster,
while his mother reportedly refused to step in and help her son.
These men were not ideal stepfathers
by any stretch of the imagination.
These were men who abused bowles
he was somebody who never felt particularly safe
or secure, or childlike in his own home.
Home was a dangerous place for him.
At the age of 10 years old,
he started to engage in substance abuse.
At the time he was sniffing glue,
snorting whatever he can like paint
to get high just in this frantic effort to escape the pain
that was inflicted upon him by his stepfathers.
As he matured into a teenager, bowles finally snapped.
And the boy, then only 13,
really hit back his dubious stepfather.
In fact, he hit him with a rock very hard
in an effort to stop him.
He was fed up with the fact that his mother was being abused
and his brother was being abused and he was being abused
and he wanted to put a stop to it.
I think this is something
that is a very pivotal moment for him.
He has been in this household where violence is normal,
violence is every day,
violence is a way of exerting your power and your control over others.
And bowles at this point has had enough.
And I think he probably feels
that he has won at this particular point.
He had some kind of victory over his abuser.
Now, he comes to equate violence with power.
His stepfather survived the attack,
but the incident led to bowles leaving home
while still in his early teens.
Drifting up and down the country,
he found a dubious way to make money.
What Gary told me was, he found it easy to...
Say for instance, he was hitchhiking a ride,
one particular incident that he told me.
The man gave him a ride, and then offered him money...
For sex.
On the one hand,
he's found a solution to some of his problems.
But on the other hand,
I think this creates a whole new problem in itself.
Because in doing this, he's fuelling feelings of shame
and... and feelings of regret, essentially.
All violence is rooted in shame.
So, this is not a good combination.
In 1982, the 20-year-old was arrested
for a violent attack on his girlfriend,
which left her physically scarred for life.
He blamed alcohol. He blamed drug use.
He only claimed to remember parts of the assault,
but it was a horrible attack.
To quote the detective
in a probation or sentencing hearing,
she said she had seen better looking bodies in the morgue.
Bowles served 18 months for the assault
but when he was released in 1983,
the 21-year-old soon settled down with a new girlfriend.
In fact, she gets pregnant by bowles
and they seem to have what is the beginnings
of maybe a family life.
But then she makes a discovery,
bowles is still working as a male sex worker. He's
still prostituting himself.
And she can't stand that lifestyle.
She rejects it utterly.
She calls him a hustler
and she then aborts the child, their child.
Bowles would later claim
that this was the trigger that led him
to target a specific type of victim.
He did mention to me that...
And I'll quote it, he said, "they killed my baby."
They, meaning homosexuals, killed his baby.
According to bowles that put him in a vicious circle
where he had to go out and hustle
and beat these gay men and get their money.
And he became enraged at the gay men for that.
It was an anger that led to a succession of misdemeanours
that would land bowles in and out of prison for the next decade.
In march, 1994,
Gary ray bowles was at the home of 59-year-old John Roberts
in Daytona beach, Florida.
The circumstances surrounding their friendship are not known,
but years later the killer confessed
that he and Roberts had got into an argument over a woman
whom bowles had been spending time with.
Gary was on the phone...
And John Roberts made a derogatory remark,
or said, you know, "you don't need to be talking to that bitch,"
something very nasty.
And it really upset Gary.
So, Gary said...
John Roberts was sitting on the couch,
Gary picked up a lamp and bashed him over the head.
Then I think, believe, he told me that he strangled him,
and he stuffed a rag or something in his mouth.
And then he fled the scene from there.
In an apparent fit of rage, 32-year-old Gary ray bowles
had killed for the very first time.
This is an important murder
because bowles didn't get caught for it.
And I think he learns from this,
that actually murder is something that you can get away with.
And I... I think that after this murder, he's... he's reliving it.
He's thinking about it.
He's enjoying those feelings of power that it gave him.
But it's not long before he wants to experience those feelings again.
Gary ray bowles now had a taste for murder.
John Roberts was the first, but he would not be the last victim
on bowles's chaotic killing spree.
In just over nine weeks' time, another four men would be dead.
In march 1994,
32-year-old drifter, Gary ray bowles had taken the life of another man
in Daytona beach, Florida.
John Roberts had been bludgeoned,
and then strangled to death in his own home.
Detectives searching for the killer had a major breakthrough early on.
The Daytona beach police found
a piece of probation or parole paperwork
that belonged to Gary ray bowles at the scene of the murder.
But Gary ray bowles is no longer in Daytona beach.
He's gone.
And what's more, he starts another...
Trade which is to become part of his signature.
He changes his name.
Going by an unknown alias,
bowles made his way to silver spring, Maryland.
Just a month after the attack on John Roberts,
bowles would later confess
to the murder of 39-year-old David jarman,
after meeting him on a night out in the dupont circle region
of Washington DC.
Gary told me that mr jarman was doing something he didn't like.
And he told them to stop.
Mr jarman did not stop,
and Gary got mad and strangled him...
And wrapped him up in bedsheets...
Turned the ac down real low,
so it'd be cold in there, and he left.
Just as he had forced something into the mouth of his first victim,
John Roberts, bowles did the same to David jarman.
Jarman is beaten, strangled...
But this time...
There's a little additional twist.
Bowles stuffs a sex toy into his victim's mouth when he leaves him.
This murder is interesting because he stuffed the sex toy
in this... this man's mouth.
This is something that he's... he's doing in a performative way.
He's wanting to humiliate his victim.
David jarman had last been seen leaving a bar on p street
with an unknown man.
The murder stunned the local residents.
It sent shock waves through the community
because you just didn't hear of such things back then.
And it really hit home in the gay community
because dupont circle was known
to be a popular hangout for gay people.
And they had many bars and restaurants
that many liked to frequent
because it was just the cool place to go.
Investigators had no idea
that the murders of David jarman and John Roberts were linked.
The two crime scenes were over 700 miles apart,
which meant that two different police departments
were working on the cases.
It's not as if this is a master criminal.
On the contrary but he is clever enough to do
is to cross county lines...
Thereby evading the local police department
and you have to remember at this point,
there is no national database.
Bowles would soon strike again,
just three weeks after the murder of David jarman,
he was in yet another state, Savannah, Georgia,
the home of 72-year-old local hero, Milton Bradley.
Milton Bradley was a world war ii veteran.
He suffered a brain injury in world war ii,
was totally disabled...
And got along with a stipend from his family that he got daily.
And...
He was a very, very nice, kind, gentle man
and pretty much stayed in the downtown Savannah area,
which was his footprint.
He didn't leave that area.
On the may 5, 1994,
Milton Bradley's body was found on a nearby golf course.
He had become victim number three of Gary ray bowles.
There were pieces of a broken toilet.
The leaves and dirt around Bradley's body were in disarray,
and there were scrapes in the back of a maintenance shed
that indicated somebody had been forced against it
or that a struggle, violent struggle had taken place.
There was a severe amount of trauma
to Bradley's face, and neck, and head.
And the strangest thing
about it was there were dirt and leaves...
Protruding from Bradley's mouth.
Just like David jarman,
Milton Bradley had last been seen in a local bar
with a mysterious out of towner.
We began receiving information, myself and my partner at the time,
detective Deborah Robinson, from the gay community
that Bradley had been seen with a drifter
who had come into town who was telling different stories,
giving different stories about where he was from,
how he got to Savannah, and giving different names.
He was identified as James, Mike, or Mark.
The killer's palm print was taken at the crime scene,
but detectives had no idea who it belonged to.
They were unaware
that a serial killer was on the loose,
working up and down the 1900-mile long,
i-95 highway.
So, you now had three murders
within the space of two months.
Bowles is unrepentant and absolutely determined to go on killing.
Bowles stayed in Georgia to claim his next victim.
Although it was a detour from his usual route along the i-95,
his mo remained the same.
He crossed paths with 47-year-old alverson Carter in Atlanta
on the may 13.
He met mr Carter in a gay bar.
And I guess mr Carter invited Gary over to his apartment.
So, that once he was over there, they were drinking,
and then they got engaged into sex.
Mr Carter, according to Gary,
was very aggressive in his sexual behaviour.
And Gary was telling him to quit doing what he was doing.
He didn't like it.
Gary went downstairs,
told to Carter that he went down there to get some more liquor.
He picked up a knife, went back upstairs,
and killed him by stabbing him.
This case was a very unique case
when it comes to bowles's crime...
Because alverson Carter was killed via stab wounds.
This was the first of his and only of his murders
where there was stabbing involved.
It was the signs of a violent struggle,
furniture broken and in disarray.
Alverson Carter's mouth was stuffed with a towel.
As the investigation into alverson Carter's murder began,
bowles was already in a different state.
Back in Florida and on the i-95,
he surfaced just north of Jacksonville,
in Nassau county,
where he soon befriended 37-year-old al Morris.
Al was a very fun person.
He liked to have a good time.
He was business, but he liked to party on the weekends,
liked to furnish people with food and drinks.
He liked to have a good time.
Jackie remembers the first time he met al's new friend.
They were supposed to come to my store,
and they actually arrived a little earlier and come over to my house.
And that's when I first met Gary,
which al introduced me to him as Joey Pearson.
And he was standing there with his hands in his pockets,
already wearing al's clothes,
and I thought that it struck me kind of odd.
Despite his initial concern,
Jackie soon warmed to the mysterious stranger.
His personality traits to start out was very friendly,
he was kind of outgoing,
had a good little sense of humour about him,
and he... could he could wedge his way right into a crowd real easy.
He inveigled his way into their lives.
He became, 'a friend'.
They didn't suspect him.
They didn't think that this man who was buddying up to them,
could possible be dangerous
and that was part of bowles' mo
that he wasn't...
An evil figure dressed in a cloak.
He was just this guy who seemed harmless enough.
Bowles stayed with al Morris for a few days,
with the promise of doing some jobs to help him out.
He was supposed to be doing some work around al's house
that needed to be done.
He needed some work done in the kitchen
and he needed some work done on his porch.
He didn't do any of the work at all.
He laid around all day drinking and smoking.
This is him appearing to be somebody who is helpful
and who is giving,
and who is going to... to make the victim's life easier.
So, it's that getting inside the home
which is the important thing for me.
He is accessing their... their private zone,
their safe space.
Then he's violating that in the worst possible way.
On one occasion, Jackie had to break up a fight
between al and bowles in the parking lot of a bar.
He had no idea
that it would be the last time he'd see his friend alive.
And the next morning I got up and I called al,
and he has a busy signal on his phone.
And I called him until I had to go to town...
And then when I come back from town,
I called al about three more times and it was the busy signal.
And I said, "oh, I just...
"I just got to lay down for a little bit and take a nap."
So, I went over to the house and I laid down,
and just as soon as I did, they come knocking at the door saying,
"al's been murdered.
"Al's been murdered."
Jackie immediately rushed over to al's trailer park home.
There was a crowd of people in the yard,
the trailer door was open,
there was a bloody hand print on the door, and I saw his mother.
And she said that she had went in there and found him
on the kitchen floor,
and it looked like he had just come out of the shower
and he had had a towel around his neck.
And she just would never forget his eyes.
And there was blood all over the living room
where al had tried to find the front door of the trailer to get out
but Gary was torturing him all the way...
Until he died.
Just six days after arriving in town,
bowles had killed for a fifth time.
He would eventually confess to al Morris's murder,
and the fight that led up to it.
He told me about that one.
Al Morris, he wasn't just a push over.
And Gary thought he was.
And they got in an argument because they were out,
and al saw him
making motions towards someone else.
And when they got back to the trailer, al's trailer,
they were drinking,
and al brought it up, and they got into a fight.
And according to Gary, he said, "that guy was whipping my ass.
"I couldn't get him off of me."
And the only way he could get him off of him
was there was a shotgun nearby.
And Gary said he picked up the shotgun and shot al.
He said, "that was the only way I could get him off of me."
In less than ten weeks,
Gary ray bowles had taken the lives of five men.
Detectives from five different police departments
were trying to solve their individual cases.
It would take some extraordinary detective work
to finally bring bowles to justice.
But not before he would kill for a sixth time.
In may 1994,
Gary ray bowles had killed for a fifth time.
Bowles had murdered al Morris after winning his trust
and attacking him in his Nassau county home.
He feeds off other people's kindness
and other people's willingness to... to welcome someone
into their home.
And this gives him immense feelings of power.
I think the home is this constant theme
that keeps coming up with him.
So, the home is somewhere where he never felt safe.
The home was somewhere where he was abused, he was violated.
And now, he's going into other people's homes,
he's making his way into other people's lives,
and he's violating them.
Five killings in a matter of weeks.
It's as if he's absolutely...
On an adrenaline rush
fuelled by no doubt a certain amount of alcohol
but fuelled also, no question by genuine blood lust.
He's unrepentant, unremorseful.
But by now...
Some of the police departments are beginning to see
there might be a pattern here.
Detective John best,
who was investigating the murder of Milton Bradley
in Savannah, Georgia,
had sent out a request to neighbouring police departments
to see if they had any similar homicides.
And he soon got a response from investigators in Nassau county
who were looking into al Morris's murder.
Two murders of gay men
involving a transient or a drifter who was a suspect.
These murders occur right off the i-95 corridor.
These crime scenes are eerily similar,
even though one is outside, one is inside.
My crime scene with Milton Bradley, pockets are turned inside out.
Nassau county crime scene with al Morris,
pockets are turned inside out.
So, I feel, at this point, the two are linked.
John showed a composite sketch of the suspect to the witnesses
who had seen him with Milton Bradley on the night of his murder.
One of them claimed that he had been to a convenience store
with bowles the previous day.
Armed with security cam footage from the store,
John approached Jackie strickland,
who had met the killer before his attack on al Morris.
So, I watched the video tape from that convenience store
for several minutes,
and then the door opened and then two guys come in.
And one guy went to the counter, and the other guy was Joey,
who he told me he was,
I recognised him immediately when he come in the store.
The other guy went and bought a pack of cigarettes...
But Joey is sitting there with a woman
who has a baby on her hip
and he's playing with her little baby girl...
There
and talking about maybe how cute the baby is and something.
And this guy has just murdered all these people
and has no conscience whatsoever.
And that's when I said, "that's him.
"That's what he looks like.
"That's your guy right there."
So, now we have one suspect
linked to two murders, in two different states,
with the same circumstances.
Same violent crime scenes.
Pockets turned inside out on both.
So, now we have a definitive link.
Two murders, two states, same suspect.
And then we spoke to the supervisory agent in charge, Harold Jones.
And I'll never forget Harold Jones looking at me and saying,
"Johnny, I think you've got a serial killer on your hands."
FBI agent Harold Jones
sent a request out to see if there were any more potential victims
that could be linked to the killer.
And he soon got a hit, another murder case in Florida,
that had happened back in march.
The Daytona beach police responded
to special agent Jones's teletype,
and gave him the name of a suspect in the murder of John Hardy Roberts.
The name they gave him was Gary ray bowles.
Finally, investigators had a name.
Gary ray bowles had a long list of felonies,
meaning his fingerprints were on file
from a previous arrest,
these proved to be a match
with the prints found at the Milton Bradley crime scene.
So, now we have physical evidence.
We have a palm print at the scene.
We have video evidence of bowles being in Savannah with a witness.
That day, I secured a murder warrant for Gary bowles.
Bowles was added to the FBI's top ten most wanted fugitives list.
Investigators needed to track him down.
Fast.
We seen it all over our local papers,
the news was out and all of our local news.
The word was getting out that this guy, Gary ray bowles,
needed to be found.
This is what he looks like.
And he needs to be picked up off the streets
because he's very dangerous.
Words pretty much can't define how I felt.
But I was glad that we have this person identified.
I can tell the Bradley family that now we know who killed Milton.
Then there's another part of me that realised now...
Now the hard part starts.
We have to find him.
Bowles was now becoming infamous across the nation,
and the media had even come up with a nickname for the killer.
The media started calling bowles the i-95 killer
because as we found out later, that was the way he got around.
That's the main highway
on the east coast of the United States.
That's how he travelled.
I think this transience is conscious.
It's not something that's happening by accident
because there's an awareness amongst serial killers
at this particular point in time
that police systems perhaps don't always join up
particularly well.
The additional publicity led to detectives linking bowles
to two further murders,
due to the similarly chaotic crime scenes,
where the victims had been left
with something stuffed in their mouths,
David jarman in Maryland and alverson Carter in Georgia.
After killing five men in just over nine weeks,
bowles had suddenly stopped.
Nobody knew where the 32-year-old drifter was.
I was very worried when he was on the run,
because we're sitting out like open targets on the open highway there,
and I thought that, you know,
he might come back one night
and say, "hey, remember me?
"What'd you tell them?
"Are you the reason that they all are after me now?"
I just had no idea.
After laying low for six months,
bowles resurfaced in Jacksonville beach, Florida.
He couldn't resist killing for a sixth time.
On a winter's morning, 42-year-old Jay hinton
didn't turn up at the flower shop where he worked.
Well, I came onto the case,
I believe
it was November 20, 1994.
A relative of mr hinton's called in, and said...
"I believe
"my brother-in-law, my girlfriend's brother is dead,
"and he's in the trailer."
That type of call.
Uniformed officers were dispatched out there.
Then we, as homicide, we were notified, and we responded.
As we went inside, and we went in very carefully,
and just to speed things up,
we found the deceased individual covered up with blankets and sheets.
Jay hinton's head had been struck by a heavy object.
A cinder block was laying on the bed next to his body.
The murder bore all the hallmarks
of another brutal, Gary ray bowles attack.
I think the reason for this, this extensive violence
is because the more violent he is,
the more powerful and the more in control he feels.
During his childhood, he came to learn that violence was currency.
The more of it you had, the better, the more powerful you were.
So, I think that does explain that the level of brutality
that we've seen in these cases.
Detective, Joe Collins had read all the information on bowles
and was certain
that the serial killer had struck again.
At one particular time,
once we were going through everything,
there were some key things.
There was a gin bottle, he liked drinking gin.
There were kool cigarettes, he liked smoking those.
Some of the things, the way the victim was,
the way we found Jay hinton was also a big clue.
And I made mention to my partner at the time that...
Uh, you know, "hey man, I think this might be bowles.
"This might be Gary bowles."
But documentation recovered at the scene
suggested that someone entirely different
may be involved in the murder of Jay hinton.
The biggest evidence that we found was the ameri-force payslip.
The payslip had the name of Timothy or Tim Whitfield on it.
So, that was, you know, I would say,
that's probably one of the best pieces of evidence,
because it gives us a lead to find out
why Jay hinton, the victim,
had a pay slip belonging to someone else.
While his heart said that bowles was the killer,
Joe's head told him to follow the evidence.
We wanted to know who Tim Whitfield was.
Don't, you know, haze the investigation at all.
Don't rush through it and say, "yup, it's bowles.
"He's using a different name."
We want to know who this guy,
Tim Whitfield, was, and go from there.
One step at a time.
The hunt was on.
Joe and his team needed to locate Tim Whitfield
and find out if he truly was Gary ray bowles,
before the transient killer moved on,
and murdered again.
In November, 1994,
police in Jacksonville beach, Florida
were closing the net on serial killer Gary ray bowles.
Detectives believed that bowles was responsible
for the death of 42-year-old Jay hinton,
but a payslip left behind at the crime scene
pointed them towards a man named Tim Whitfield.
Investigators were certain
that Whitfield and bowles were one and the same.
Well, there could hardly be a more obvious clue
for the local police to find.
They look at the pay slip.
They approach the ameri-force organisation
and ask if Timothy Whitfield is working there.
They're told yes.
They're then alerted the moment he turns up for work
and he is arrested for the murder of hinton.
Detective Joe Collins led the interrogation of Tim Whitfield.
We, my partner and I, were asking him questions
about how he knew Jay hinton.
And he would tell us partial truths, things that we already knew.
But then he would switch gears, and change up,
and say something that really wasn't true.
As the interview continued on, Whitfield grew ever more flustered.
About the second or third time he started wavering again
and telling us a story, I stopped him abruptly.
And I said, "I told you.
"Don't lie to me.
"I want you to tell me the truth."
I was a little stern the way I said it, my partner was as well.
And apparently, he didn't like that,
being boxed into a corner, so to speak.
And he jumped up, almost got in my face, and said,
"you want to know I really am?
"Want me to tell you the truth?
"I'm Gary ray bowles. That's who I am.
"Gary ray bowles."
And he sat down.
At that particular time I'm looking at Gary ray bowles.
And right then and there, yeah, I knew, this is the guy.
And I just, I remember putting my hands on his shoulder,
his head was down, and he said,
"I'm glad it's over."
And I just, I said, "just calm down.
"I'm here and we'll talk about it."
Gary ray bowles, who had killed six men in just eight months,
was finally in custody.
He would never be free again.
Well, it was an exciting feeling.
I'm not going to say it was a jump for joy, or something like that,
but it was like, "wow, we really do have this guy."
And I said, "can you prove it?"
And he goes, "yeah, I can prove it."
And he pulled out a wallet.
And he pulled out Tim Whitfield's ID, social security card,
he goes, "this is the ID I stole from the guy
"I killed in Nassau county."
And I'm like, "ok, he just admitted to another murder.
"But I've got to get my murder down.
"We have to worry about our murder."
Bowles admitted to doctoring al Morris's ID card
after murdering him in Nassau county.
Bowles then went into detail about how he had killed Jay hinton.
He told the detectives that they had fallen out over a mutual friend
and Jay had told bowles to get out of his house.
And the more he thought about
what Jay told him,
the madder he got.
So, he went outside and picked up
a square concrete levelling block.
It weighs approximately 40 pounds or something.
He walked into the bedroom where Jay was sleeping,
and dropped the block on Jay's head.
It did not kill Jay.
They struggled with each other back and forth.
And Gary finally overwhelmed Jay because he'd been hit in the head,
it cracked his skull.
And he strangled him,
and then he stuffed,
I believe it was a maroon washrag down his throat,
and some toilet papers as well...
And wrapped him up.
It is one of the most...
Horrifying facts about bowles
is that in the end I think he came to glory in it.
Glory in his killings.
He came to...
Wear them around him like a...
A coat.
I am the i-95 killer and I will get away with it.
I have no doubt whatever that he would have gone on killing
remorselessly
had he not been caught in November 1994.
After confessing to the murders of Jay hinton and al Morris,
bowles met with detectives in Savannah, Georgia
to discuss the Milton Bradley case.
Bowles' confessed pretty much chronologically
and bowles' confessed
it would depend on which police agency or law enforcement agency
was interviewing him at the time.
Bowles confessed first to the Jacksonville detectives
about the murder of Jay hinton.
Next, Dennis Reagan and I interviewed him
about the Milton Bradley murder
and while we were interviewing bowles
about the murder of Milton Bradley,
he confessed to the murder of alverson Carter.
Bowles would eventually confess
to the murders of John Roberts and David jarman too,
meaning he had admitted to killing all six of his victims.
Detectives were still fascinated
by his signature calling card.
Gary told me, because I wanted to know why he put things,
the rags, toilet paper, washcloths, whatever,
in someone's throat,
"why did you do that?"
And he told... Gary told me, he goes, "I don't know,"
he goes, "I just didn't want to hear...
"The sounds coming out of their mouth."
That's what he told me.
And I said, "well, you think you did it to make sure they were dead?"
He goes, "no, I just didn't want to hear them."
I think this was something that was symbolic.
So, it's not only silencing them
in terms of stopping them from screaming
when he's killing them.
It's also silencing them after their deaths.
He's saying to these men, "you don't have a voice.
"Your voice is not worth hearing."
This is all coming from those feelings of humiliation
and feelings of shame that he has within himself.
So, he is essentially taking this out on his victims
by shutting them up.
Although, he had admitted to all six murders,
bowles was originally charged with just one, Jay hinton.
If found guilty of first-degree murder in Florida,
bowles would be sentenced to death in spite of the other cases.
There's no point, as far as the authorities are concerned,
in lumping all the other crimes together.
They have him absolutely stone cold
on the killing of hinton in his trailer
so they proceed on that count alone to begin with.
By 1999,
Gary bowles had been sentenced to death
for the murders of all his Florida victims,
John Roberts, al Morris and Jay hinton.
He would spend the next 20 years of his life on death row.
Like so many prisoners on death row in the United States,
appeal after appeal...
Legal process after legal process
grinds on incessantly.
It's not until August 2019...
That he is finally executed by lethal injection in Florida.
Gary ray bowles was 57 years old when he was executed.
He always claimed that resentment from his childhood
and the abortion of his girlfriend's baby in 1985,
led him to the fits of rage
that resulted in the deaths of six innocent men.
His blaming his childhood for an excuse to kill.
I mean, he killed six times, then his reason is that he snapped.
Really, you snapped six times?
There was no remorse.
The last part of that,
if... if... if you had to go to these crime scenes,
or review the photos, but look at these crime scenes.
The amount of overkill, the amount of force,
the amount that was used was just... just...
Completely over the top.
It was... it was way more than... than needed
to just... just kill somebody.
After the first one with John Roberts,
I can understand the anger which would drive it.
But then afterwards, you know what you're doing.
And that's where the evil comes in.
It's like a dog, as they say, canines...
Once they bite somebody the first time,
it becomes a whole lot easier.
In other words, the taste of blood.
Humans are almost the same way.
I just think after the first one, it became a little bit easier.
He'd become mad, and he wasn't able to hold back the temper.
Bowles weaselled his way into the lives of his victims,
be it for one night or longer,
before killing them in apparent outbursts of rage.
No matter what caused him to act this way,
nothing can excuse the murder of six men,
who showed him nothing but kindness and hospitality
which is why Gary ray bowles will always be remembered
as one of the world's most evil killers.
(Instrumental music)
Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV