‘Cold, calculating’: Viola Bowman sentenced to life in prison for husband’s murder
A Clay County judge has sentenced Viola Bowman to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the fatal shooting of her husband in Kansas City nine years ago.
Bowman, who rejected an earlier plea deal that would have freed her, was sentenced by Judge Shane T. Alexander after being found guilty at trial of first-degree murder and armed criminal action three weeks ago. Her husband, Albert “Rusty” Bowman, was shot and killed in what prosecutors contend was “a cold and calculating murder.”
Bowman continued to maintain that she is innocent as she spoke in court Wednesday.
“I did not murder my husband,” she told the judge, before she turned and addressed two of her daughters present in courtroom.
“I’m sorry you lost your father. … I suffer every day without your father here.”
Rusty Bowman was found dead on Nov. 7, 2012 in his Northland home at 5530 N.E. Munger Road. He was covered in blood in his recliner when first responders arrived, summoned to the house with a 911 call placed by his wife.
Nearly two years after the homicide, police took Bowman in for questioning and let her go. She was later arrested in January 2015. She spent roughly six-and-a-half years awaiting her day in court.
At trial, prosecutors alleged Bowman staged a break-in at the home and shot her husband twice, striking him in the head and chest. Her demeanor was considered odd by emergency workers and she made inconsistent statements to investigators, who questioned her theory that a burglar was responsible, prosecutors said.
They noted that items like a laptop, car keys and a wallet were not stolen from the home. Prosecutors also contended that Bowman benefited from a life insurance policy in the wake of her husband’s death.
Meanwhile, Horton Lance, Bowman’s defense attorney, said she loved her husband of 35 years. She was at Walmart during the shooting, buying items to make caramel apples, and when she arrived home, she encountered the most “traumatic, terrifying event of her lifetime,” he said.
During the sentencing hearing Wednesday, supporters and opponents of Bowman sat on opposite sides of the courtroom as Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Robert Lee Sanders called two witnesses to the stand.
The first was Debbie Bowman, sister of Rusty Bowman. She said their mother was never the same as she was consumed by grief following the death of her only son. She attributed her mother’s death — on Nov. 7, 2020, the eight-year anniversary of the murder — in part to the long “pursuit for justice.”
“I hope she gets to be the oldest person in the state of Missouri prison,” Debbie Bowman said of her ex-sister-in-law, saying her brother’s and mother’s lives were both stripped away by the killing.
Also testifying was Pamela Franklin, one of Bowman’s three daughters. She said her father’s absence during the growth of her own family — getting married, having children of her own — “is a heartache that never leaves me.”
“I miss him,” Franklin said of her father. “I would give anything to have him back.”
Sanders, the assistant prosecutor, recommended to the judge that Bowman be imprisoned for life. He accused her of being a “cold, calculating manipulator” and said her husband “deserves no less for justice.”
Supporters of Bowman wrote letters to the judge asking for leniency. Among them was Sandi Johnson, a longtime friend of the Bowman couple, who wrote in a letter to the judge that Bowman was a caring wife who loved her husband “with every fiber of her being.” Johnson wrote that she and her husband are fully convinced of her innocence.
Before sentencing, Judge Alexander said that requests for leniency in sentencing for a first-degree murder conviction “simply cannot be granted” under the law. He also said that the court is convinced of Bowman’s guilt.
Lance, the defense attorney, sought for the judge to order a new trial, saying the jury made “a tragic mistake” by convicting Bowman. That motion was rejected Wednesday. Lance told The Star after court that he would be filing an appeal on Bowman’s behalf, saying “we hope to prove in the end that she truly is innocent.”
Bowman was given the opportunity last year to take a plea deal that would have resulted in a five-year sentence with credit for time served, effectively releasing her in exchange for admitting to voluntary manslaughter.
But she rejected that offer, telling the judge at the time: “I did not do this.”
In 2019, Bowman was the subject of a Star investigation examining problems with the Missouri State Public Defender system. The investigation found that the system routinely fails poor defendants by providing inadequate representation that falls short of constitutional guarantees. It highlighted Bowman’s case, which was postponed dozens of times as the office struggled to balance overwhelming caseloads.
