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© St. Petersburg Times, published July 13, 2002
TAMPA -- Despite two tossed charges, a new lawyer, a new trial and a new judge, Bernice Bowen ended up Friday exactly where she started three years ago: with a 21-year prison sentence.
Pleading for the judge to show mercy, Bowen's attorney contended that she was as much a victim of former boyfriend Hank Earl Carr as the three law officers Carr murdered on May 19, 1998.
But Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta decided that Bowen's lies to protect Carr were so egregious that he departed from state sentencing guidelines, which called for her to serve six to 11 years in prison.
By abetting her boyfriend's rampage, Ficarrotta said, Bowen subjected the public, including children, to the risk of injury or death.
Glenn Childers, 30, the son of one of the slain officers, said the sentence was just.
"We'll always miss our father," he said. "But it helps us put the Bernice Bowen part of it behind us and move on."
The bloody events of May 19, 1998, began with Carr's gunning down Bowen's 4-year-old son, Joey. Carr, a career criminal, used a handcuff key to escape from Tampa police detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell and murdered them both. He later killed Highway Patrol Trooper James Crooks, then he killed himself in a Hernando County gas station as police closed in.
While authorities scrambled after Carr, Bowen repeatedly gave them a false name for him.
At her first trial in 1999, a jury convicted Bowen on five charges: accessory after the fact to Carr's escape from police and to the killing of the 4-year-old and the three officers. Cirwebfeed An appeals court tossed out Bowen's convictions involving the deaths of her son and the trooper and ordered a new trial on the remaining charges. A second jury convicted her on those charges last month without hearing of Trooper Crooks' death.
Prosecutor Curt Allen asked the judge Friday to sentence Bowen more harshly than state guidelines. He asked for up to 65 years in prison.
"How do I articulate what this community has lost?" Allen said, indicating the family members of Carr's victims who were sitting in the courtroom.
Retorted Claude Tison, Bowen's attorney: "It's vengeance that Mr. Allen is calling for, not justice."
Tison said Bowen was far from the "gun-toting, give-'em-hell woman" portrayed by prosecutors. Instead, she was Carr's puppet, "a fearful person who hardly had a personality of her own."
"She was a doormat, an Edith Bunker," Tison said.
Richard Carpenter, a psychologist who has examined Bowen, testified Friday that she had dependent personality disorder stemming in part from a childhood in which she suffered sexual abuse.
Outside the courthouse, Tison said he was astounded by the sentence and had already filed a notice of appeal.
"I think the sentence is unlawful," he said. "The original sentence was for five convictions; this was for three. In effect, (the judge) has disregarded the fact that she was acquitted on two of the counts, and I don't believe the court of appeal will stand for that."
Tison argued that Bowen deserved a new trial because of former prosecutor Shirley Williams' involvement in the case.
Williams, who sat at the state's table during Bowen's trial last month but remained silent, lost her job soon after amid allegations that she had lied about an unrelated case. The judge ruled that her firing was irrelevant to the Bowen case.
Bowen, 28, already is serving 15 years for child abuse for allowing Carr around her children. The sentence handed down Friday will run concurrently with that one.
-- Christopher Goffard can be reached at 813-226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com
In jail missives, she adored killer, June 22, 2002
Bowen says fear made her lie, June 20, 2002
Four years don't erase anguish, June 19, 2002
Killer's girlfriend will get new trial, March 23, 2002