By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
A CONVICTED murderer who took part in a notorious escape in 2006 that resulted in the death of a police officer was found dead in his prison cell yesterday, authorities have confirmed.
They declined to provide details of the circumstances surrounding Forrester Bowe’s death at Her Majesty’s Prison, Fox Hill, saying that the matter has been turned over to the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) and the Coroner for investigation.
“At about 6.50am today,” a statement from the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services said, “sentenced inmate Forrester Bowe was found in his cell unresponsive to roll call. The Department’s Medical Officer was called, and after an examination inmate Bowe was pronounced dead at 7.45am.”
The 37-year-old Bowe staged an escape from the maximum security wing with convicted rapist Barry Parcoi, convicted murderer Neil Brown and convicted armed robber Corey Hepburn around 4am on January 17, 2006. Brown was shot dead during attempts to re-capture him.
The men were found by the Coroner in May 2006 to be jointly responsible for the killing of the 13-year prison veteran Corporal Dion Bowles during their breakout.
The infamous escape prompted examinations into Her Majesty’s Prison and shone a light on the inner workings of the country’s correctional services unit.
Their trial is slated to begin on November 20, 2015.
In addition to killing Mr Bowles, they injured officers Kenneth Sweeting and David Armbrister. Bowe and Parcoi were injured during the incident as well but they were quickly captured by authorities.
Hepburn, on the other hand, escaped and led police on a two-week hunt before he was recaptured in an apartment building on Coral Harbour.
As for the incident that sent him to prison initially, Bowe was convicted of killing 20-year-old Dion Patrick Roach in Grand Bahama when the Freeport Supreme Court determined that he had shot Mr Roach at an apartment complex on October 23, 1992.
He was sentenced to death in 1998 and his attempts at appealing his conviction were dismissed by the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council.
However, he won a landmark case when he challenged the court’s mandatory death penalty for convicted murderers in 2002 after the Privy Council determined that penalty was a breach of international human rights.
He was eventually re-sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Attorney Keod Smith, who represented Bowe during proceedings into Mr Bowles’ killing, expressed sadness and shock at the news of Bowe’s death yesterday, saying that the convicted killer always proclaimed his innocence and looked forward to being with his family.
“That is very surprising,” he said when The Big T informed him of Bowe’s death. “I’m truly saddened by his death. “I know that he was a person who was on death row but I can tell you as far as I know the personality of the person that I met was definitely not the kind from a person who would be there for the reason he was there for.
“I don’t know what my role will be in terms of acting for the family, whom I’ve come to know. But I know Bowe continued to proclaim his innocence and he was still a young man who was looking for the opportunity to come out of prison and to be with his family. It is unfortunate we did not have him to eventually be free of his incarceration in order to curb the mentality of people who are accused and convicted of heinous crimes.”
Comments
John 10 years, 1 month ago
Do you know the United States has over 1.5 million casket liners stored up? When NEMA purchased these "caskets" several years ago they claimed they were a part of their emergency and diaster preparedness. Now that victims of the EBOLA have died in the US these casket liners are being used for their burial. The liners are air and water tight and large enough for a regular coffin to fit in. Funeral directors have been given specific instructions as to how to handle EBOLA victims. This includes no public exposure or viewing of the body and the use of one of these casket liners. Does Amer8ca expect to lose more than 1 million of its citizens to EBOLA? What does that mean for the Bahamas?
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
VictimS? One man died so far, hopefully that's it. I would suspect that the liners were probably a response to Katrina. Guidelines on how to handle Ebola victims have been around for DECADES. as the disease has been around for DECADES.
John 10 years, 1 month ago
They have a serum to fight the Ebola virus but according to authorities it only works on certain "blood types." In other words it doesn't work on black people.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
Of course it doesn't work on black people, the "serum" they are using is based on antibodies from a white survivor. Different blood types. The vaccine they used to treat that very same white survivor is out of stock worldwide. They are trying to produce more of it now. But please keep your tin foil hat and an empty closet ready just in case.
Now if you want to speculate that that mans case was handled improperly, sure I'll go with that but more so that he wasn't identified earlier as an Ebola victim. By the time they got to him he was probably deathly ill. The other "white" survivors were identified right away because it was obvious they had been around Ebola victims. The earlier identification is made the better chance of survival.
observer2 10 years, 1 month ago
We need to build proper housing and get the people living in Shanty Towns into them. Also we need to turn on the lights and running water for all Bahamians so we can keep ourselves clean.
SP 10 years, 1 month ago
Any eventual Ebola outbreak in Haiti would be immeasurably catastrophic, totally uncontrollable similar to West Africa and would spill over our borders with lightning speed as local Haitians residents redouble efforts to smuggle family and friends to the Bahamas for better medical attention.
History dictates our leaders are total failures at protecting the Bahamas from the present ongoing Haitian invasion as well as anything else to date.
I have absolutely zero confidence either PLP or FNM have the slightest clue of how to even begin "thinking" about dealing with an intensified influx of even more desperate infected Haitian illegals.
Someone with sense better immediately start a very serious conversation on Haiti, Haitians, illegals and Ebola or our people and country could be destroyed in a matter of mere months!
John 10 years, 1 month ago
So why aren't these casket liners made available to West African countries where the chances of contaminating the water table and soil is even greater. Strange though they was saying the same thing about AIDS medicine when it first came out...that it works for white people. Yet they were all over Africa giving "vaccines " and (black) people were getting sick and dying like flies. Today in the United Kingdom both parents can have AIDS and give birth to a healthy baby that shows no signs of the disease. BTW when ever did the US have to bury 1 million victims of a hurricane?
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 1 month ago
You are absolutely correct, theywerent paying attention. We weren't paying attention, NOBODY was because it was "those people over there", not us. It has less to do with skin colour and more to do with selfish human nature. The same phenomenon happens in our own country..as long as only young men in Bain Town are to dropping everything is ok...but let one security person that Brave .Davis knows get shot or one "exactly what was his job function and when did he go to work?" public servant be affected and the PM turns the country upside down.
Forget racism and look at human nature
John 10 years, 1 month ago
Your posts are so contridicting. On the one hand you say the Ebola disease has been around for decades. Decades you say. Yet you say that there is no serum available to treat black people. But when a white person gets it a serum is available and his life is saved. So what happen to all the Ebola victims that have been dying for decades and decades? What did they have in common? They were all Black! But guess what This disease is rapidly mutating itself. Victims are raising from the dead with increasing frequency. Officials are starting to panic and want the body of every Ebola victim burned. How long will the "whites only" serum work? Are we about to see a real life Dawn of the dead?
DreamerX 10 years, 1 month ago
You are the worst kind of person. Ignorant and proud of it.
John 10 years, 1 month ago
While we *itch and moan about conditions in the Bahamas....Look what is going on around the world. ISIS executed thousands of Iraqi students (again)..we still have a lot to be thankful for, When Ebola comes this too, will pass. .Matthew:10:28 says, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
SP 10 years, 1 month ago
Wheres' the story on ISIS executing thousands of Iraqi students?
John 10 years, 1 month ago
They have videos on the internet. The one I saw said 1,700 at one time.
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