(tense music)
(sirens wailing)
- Tonight, we're hearing from the mother
of a man declared missing in Myrtle Beach.
- This is not like our son.
He would not just disappear without a trace.
He just wouldn't.
(indistinct radio chatter)
- Not knowing where her son is, or if he's okay,
she's living a mother's worst nightmare.
- I'm worried that he is hurt.
It's the not knowing is the nightmare in all this.
I'm worried that someone has hurt him.
I just beg the public to keep us in your prayers
because, you know, God is the only one
that's gonna get us all through this.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway.
But they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
Justice hangs in the balance.
(waves crashing) (gentle music)
- Kristofer Bowling's mother
contacted the Myrtle Beach Police Department,
because even though he was 25 years old,
Kris was the sort of person
who got in touch with his mother fairly frequently,
but he didn't make any contact for five or six days,
he stopped showing up at work.
It got to the point where several people were concerned.
- Kris's mom, she was just extremely emotional
and convinced that something bad had happened to Kris.
- Shortly after police received the phone call,
they checked local hospitals.
No hits on the hospitals.
They went to his apartment, knocked several times.
No answer at the apartment.
They had no leads.
It's like he had just vanished.
(tense music)
(crickets chirping)
(police radio chatter)
- Marisa shared with us that Kris was from Tennessee,
but moved to Myrtle Beach because his son,
who was two at the time, lived in Myrtle Beach
and he wanted to be closer to his son.
She told us that on July 28th,
Kris was supposed to have their son
and that she had not heard from him.
She said that was very out of character and unlike him,
that he was always reliable
when it would come to meeting with his son
and she was extremely worried about Kris.
(tense music)
There was no activity
after the late evening of the 27th.
We still weren't sure if there was some kind of foul play,
but we all felt that something bad had happened to Kris.
(siren wailing)
(birds chirping)
(gentle music)
- Kris was my best friend.
He would even tell people, "I'm a mama's boy," you know?
He had a big heart.
He loved his sisters.
With the youngest one, when she was born,
Kris called her his baby
and he was very protective of her.
He was so special and so gifted.
He became passionate in rapping at the age of 14, 15,
somewhere around in there.
I mean, to hear him spit those lyrics out
like he did, it's unreal.
Kris had ambition, perseverance.
As he got older, he was wanting to be a producer.
He would make beats for other kids out there
that wanted to go into that type of music.
When he went missing, I felt like I'm in a nightmare
and I'm never gonna wake up.
I keep looking at my phone,
hoping that he would text, or call.
I was praying that Kris was alive.
(tense music)
(birds chirping) (dates clicking)
- [Reporter] July 27th is not only
the last day Kristofer Skye Bowling
was officially seen in Myrtle Beach,
but it's also the last day
Kelly Simerly says she heard from her son.
- We want answers.
We want to know where our son is.
(tense music)
- He advised that he did not know Kris very well,
that he had met Kris through a mutual friend.
- And then Tyler told us that
Kris decided to come down here with his two friends
from back home as well, Bailey and Nick.
Once they arrived, Bailey and Nick also asked,
"Hey, can we also stay with you for some time?"
And he agreed, yes,
they all could stay there temporarily.
- Tyler said that after Kris
went missing, Nick and Bailey had moved back to Tennessee.
- Tyler didn't seem nervous,
but the information he was sharing
that Kris would all of a sudden run off with a girl,
as much as he cared about his son, didn't make sense.
There was a gut feeling that things weren't adding up
and that something was wrong.
(tense music)
(crickets chirping)
- Nick Henry said that he had not spoken to Kris
since the end of July and that he had
basically left Myrtle Beach to be with a girl.
Again, it was just more of the same story
that just didn't make any sense to us.
Something just wasn't right.
(tense music)
- Detectives delved into his Snapchat,
found a couple posts that he had made
the day that he went missing.
He had posted a full body selfie,
where you could see what he was wearing.
The shoes that he was wearing were some blue Jordans.
- We learned that Kris was actually making plans
to stay in Myrtle Beach.
He was in the process of getting his own apartment.
He had posted on social media on the 27th,
showing that apartment complex.
That contradicted what we had learned from Tyler and Nick,
as far as him leaving town with a girl.
(tense music)
(dates clicking)
- We were very suspicious of Tyler,
so we had a cadaver dog come
and be on scene during the search warrant.
- The cadaver dog that was brought in
actually alerted inside the apartment,
between the living room and the master bedroom,
'cause that was a location that Kris was known to sleep at.
- And when the dog got to the area,
it positively alerted for human remains.
- Speaking to the people that, you know,
are in charge of those dogs, they said it could have been
something as simple as some kind of trace evidence,
or something being carried from clothing, or from the shoes,
and that kind of stuff, to the apartment.
So, at that point we are transitioning
from this missing persons case to now,
we're having direct evidence of a homicide occurring.
(tense music)
(dates clicking)
- Our game plan was to start non-confrontational
and kind of let him run the interview at that point.
- Then after we get his statement on video,
we would start questioning the inconsistencies
and make it more of an interrogation.
- Now, he's locked himself into the story.
Then that's when we decided to transition
to the interrogation, asking direct questions
and being able to verify whether he's been caught in a lie.
(suspenseful music)
(tense music)
- You can tell Tyler was getting a little nervous.
- It's at that point he realizes that his story's falling apart,
so he has an option and the option is to change his story
or tell the truth.
- As Tyler is recounting that part of the story,
I felt that he was telling partial truths,
but we were trying to just not show any reaction,
just keep him talking.
(eerie music)
- When he's talking about shaking and freaking out,
he's showing no emotion at all.
To me, his demeanor seemed like he's being dishonest,
but we were extremely concerned with finding out where Kris was,
so we didn't want to press too much.
- I could tell that he was reliving that moment.
He appeared to be seeing Kris.
He didn't see me standing there
and you could just see the blank look in his eyes.
It seemed like he was the one that shot Kris
and he was trying to shift the focus to Nick.
- He seemed to be giving us all the facts of the case,
just downplaying his involvement, at that point.
- He's telling us that Nick shoots somebody with his gun,
with Tyler's gun, and then gives the gun back to him.
At this point, you'd be able to point the gun
at Nick, if you wanted to.
You'd be able to say, "I'm leaving, I'm getting in my car,
I'm not taking you with me, I'm going to the police."
Just doesn't make sense.
- That moment, Tyler was the lead
in the homicide investigation.
At that point, we did not have any physical evidence
and we did not have a body.
So, we charged him with obstruction of justice
for impeding and hindering
our missing person investigation.
(siren wailing) (tense music)
(dates clicking)
- The entire time, he didn't put off an air
of being scared.
He was just cold and emotionless.
- For me, in that moment, the lack of emotion
just solidified that he was the one that shot Kris.
(tense music)
(birds chirping)
- From where I'm standing, I can see
shoes that appear to be the same shoes
that Kris was wearing in the Snapchat
from the night before he went missing.
For me, that was probably one of the biggest
moments of the case because at that point,
you know that it's more than likely gonna be Kris.
(somber music)
- I remember telling my husband, "He's gone.
He's gone."
I didn't wanna believe it.
I would've died for him.
He was my world.
(cuffs clinking) (tense music)
(ominous music) (birds chirping)
(door creaking) (clock ticking)
- Once the body was found, we decided
let's basically turn the heat up.
We were trying to rattle Tyler.
We were trying to get him to make a confession.
(knocking)
As a law enforcement officer,
you're actually allowed to lie in interviews.
You just gotta be careful as far as, you know,
what you're lying about.
(door creaking) - [Detective] Thank you.
- Sergeant Lent tells them
that he just talked to Nick and Bailey
and that they are saying that Tyler is the shooter,
what he is saying is a lie.
- We had not spoken to Nick or Bailey.
We wanted to see if he changed his story,
or what his reaction was.
- So for a normal person, if you are scared
and you just saw somebody murder somebody,
are you going to one, take that gun back
and then if you're truly nervous,
now you have the only weapon, so at that point,
why not remove yourself from the situation?
But he's doing everything that Nick tells him to do,
even when Nick no longer has a gun,
which was kind of strange.
(tense music)
(door creaking) (clock ticking)
- Sergeant Lent is more assertive, more direct.
(tense music)
(clock ticking)
- It may appear that he lost his patience and left the room,
but that's by plan.
Lent, the quote, unquote, "bad cop,"
then Detective Dewitt be the good cop.
That was pretty much our strategy at that point.
After Lent's no longer in the room,
hopefully Tyler is now going to open up
to the other detective that's in that room.
Because he's being nice and reasonable, I wanna talk to him.
(clock ticking)
- He never came out and said he was the one who did it,
but the interrogation of Tyler was critical
because he put himself there,
he was the only one who owned a gun.
His story, it didn't make sense.
It didn't all match up.
What is important to consider in this case
is that Nick and Bailey are from Tennessee.
Meanwhile, Tyler is from around here.
If any of them would be familiar with a local ghost story
that is urban legend around here,
it would certainly have been Tyler.
(tense music)
Now, it was extremely important for the officers
to talk to Nick and to talk to Bailey
for them to establish everything that happened
during that shooting.
(engine revving) (tense music)
(dates clicking)
(Nick sniffling)
(Nick crying)
- He was like, very thrown off his game,
'cause he was obviously seeing us from Myrtle Beach
and Horry County.
I'm sure that heightened his senses
and the fact where it's like, he knows why we're there.
(Nick sniffling)
(tense music)
- He was so emotional that he wasn't,
he couldn't control himself.
- It was important to try to settle him,
make him feel comfortable, and relaxed.
There are times where you need to be softer
and coax the information that you are trying to learn.
- One of the differences in the interview with Nick
as opposed to the interview with Tyler,
Nick was very upset, and showing fear, a lot of emotion.
He just seems to be saying what he's feeling
and exactly what he's trying to convey.
- He's actually scared of the whole situation,
compared to like, where Tyler's very composed.
- When you see someone get extremely emotional
in the face of an allegation, of a crime,
moving around and waving around,
usually they're being honest,
because they're worried and upset
that you're gonna believe false information.
But with Nick, we thought to push him a little further
and see if his emotions changed, if his demeanor changed,
and if anything in his story changed.
(clock ticking)
(Nick crying) (dramatic music)
(tense music)
(Nick sniffling)
- [Eddy] Even under that extreme pressure, you know,
he's still saying he didn't do it.
- He's still naming Tyler the person who did it,
so you're seeing him actually get frustrated,
getting angry about the situation,
because he's being blamed, in his mind,
for something that he didn't do.
- Watching Nick, I think that his emotions were real
in that aspect.
Everything he said and the way he was reacting,
I really believed that he was scared of Tyler
at that point.
- What made it believable
was the fact that Nick was not just scared for himself,
he was scared for his grandfather, for his family.
He seemed to get more emotional talking about that.
(suspenseful music)
- It's very important 'cause Bailey
hasn't had the finger pointed at him yet,
so we wanted to really talk to Bailey,
'cause we figured that he'd be the most independent person.
Is he gonna say that it was Nick?
Is he gonna say that it was Tyler?
(pensive music)
- After Bailey's interview, he wrote a written statement
and then he also drew a sketch
where the vehicle was parked
and the way they were standing in the woods.
And it just strengthened our case
and Nick and Bailey's version of events.
(tense music)
- Bailey gave police all the information
that he was able to and he did not lie.
Investigators determined that Bailey's involvement
in this case was mere presence and at that point,
he was allowed to leave the police department.
Bailey was never charged with anything related to this case.
- The interrogations were extremely important
in this case.
The initial interrogation with Tyler
was obviously the huge turning point.
- All three interrogations put together
gave us that timeline of events
and the details of what happened that evening.
- Normally, you can kind of keep yourself
detached from cases.
For some reason, this case, it was like Kris
didn't do anything to kind of bring this upon himself,
like he's trying to go to work,
trying to be in his child's life.
We all fought really hard to try to find the facts
and the truth of what happened in this case
to bring closure to his family.
(tense music)
(dates clicking)
- I want people to remember Kris the way I remember Kris.
The happy, joyful, witty,
charming kid that he was.
If I could say something to Kris right now,
I would tell him that I loved him
and hopefully one day, I'd see him soon.