Bobby Jack Fowler
| Bobby Jack Fowler | |
|---|---|
Fowler's booking photo in Lincoln County, Oregon, 1995
|
|
| Born |
Bobby Jack Fowler June 12, 1939 Texas |
| Died | May 15, 2006 (aged 66) Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon, US |
| Cause of death | Lung cancer |
| Criminal penalty | 16 years, 3 months with the possibility of parole |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 1 confirmed, up to 20 suspected |
|
Span of killings
|
1973 or earlier–1996 |
| Country | United States, Canada |
| State(s) | Oregon, British Columbia |
|
Date apprehended
|
June 28, 1995 |
Bobby Jack Fowler (June 12, 1939 – May 15, 2006) was an American rapist and alleged serial killer active in the United States and Canada. He died in prison of lung cancer during a 16-year sentence following a conviction for rape, kidnapping and attempted rape in Newport, Oregon, in 1996 (for an attack that took place in 1995).
Fowler was a transient construction worker who is known to have traveled extensively across North America. He spent time "rabbiting around" North America to such places as British Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, South Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee and Washington State. During his travels he developed an extensive criminal record and is known to have committed several violent crimes. An alcohol, amphetamine, and methamphetamine abuser, Fowler had a criminal record that included attempted murder, sexual assault, and firearms offenses.
In 1969, he was charged with murdering a man and woman in Texas, but was only convicted of discharging a firearm within city limits. Fowler also spent time in a Tennessee prison for sexual assault and attempted murder because, in the words of an investigator, "he tied [a woman] up, beat the hell out of her with her own belt, covered her with brush and left her to die."
He liked to travel far and wide in beat-up old cars, frequently picked up hitchhikers, and spent time in bars and motels. Fowler believed that women he came into contact with who were hitchhiking and hanging out in bars wanted to be sexually assaulted.
Fowler is a suspect or person of interest in at least 16 murders in British Columbia and Oregon dating as far back as 1969.
Fowler is a suspect in the Highway of Tears murders. His DNA was found on the body of Colleen MacMillen, one of the presumed victims. Fowler is also strongly suspected to have killed both Gale Weys and Pamela Darlington in 1973. The RCMP believe that he may have also killed as many as ten of the other victims, and possibly as many as 20. Potential Canadian victims include mostly First Nation girls reported missing from Highway 16, a 724 km roadway dubbed the 'Highway of Tears' due to the high number of murders and disappearances of young women beginning in the 1970s; however, three of these murders occurred after Fowler's imprisonment in 1996.
May 3, 1992 around 1:00 a.m., Sheila Swanson, 19, and Melissa Sanders, 17, were last seen making a call from a payphone near the Beverly Beach State Park where they had been camping. Their bodies were later discovered on October 10, 1992, by hunters in a wooded area near Eddyville, Oregon.
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