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Jul 16, 2008 10:16 pm US/Central
DNA Testing May Free Arlington Man On Death Row
DALLAS (AP) ―
An Arlington man has been on death row for 24 years for a quadruple murder he says he did not commit.
A hearing will be held Thursday to consider new DNA testing that Lester Bower says will clear his name and spare his life.
"We know that the four people we are alleging committed this crime, they have all been in prison before. So, like me their DNA is on record somewhere," said Bower.
Bower was convicted of execution-style killings of four men at an airplane hanger at the B & B ranch just outside Sherman, Texas. The killings happened on October 8, 1983.
Among the evidence collected: cigarette butts, hair and saliva.
But, Grayson County prosecutors have said they can't guarantee it has not been handled or tampered with over the years.
"I'm a little incredulous about that," said Bower. "They're supposed to be the custodians of the evidence."
Shari Bower has been married to Les for forty years. She said they had just moved to Arlington from Colorado six months before the crime.
Shari served as a paralegal on his defense team. "The attorney we had asked me to do it. I didn't know any better, I guess," she said. "During the trial, the Attorney even had me sit at the defense table. If something was testified to, I would know where it was."
Shari knew the evidence. She knew Les.
"We're just wanting to prove our innocence claim through the DNA," she said. "We have been together since I was 15 and he was 17, and you don't NOT know that person."
Shari says the case took a turn in 1989 with a phone call.
"When she called, I thought she was some crack pot until she started telling me things that nobody else knew," she said.
It wasn't Lester Bower who should have gone to death row, the woman told Shari. It was the caller's ex-boyfriend and his friends who did the killings.
The Bowers say Les was convicted on circumstances. He was at the airplane hanger to buy an ultra-light plane the day of the murders, but he lied about it to his wife because she didn't want him to buy one. He kept up the lie to investigators.
"Once you start a fib, it just builds," said Les.
"That's what he's guilty of: lying to his wife and lying to the FBI," said Leslea Miller, the Bowers daughter. "But he doesn't deserve to die for that."
Leslea was 11-years-old when her father was taken away.
"Whether he is exonerated or whether he is put to death, he will finally be free and that's what we all want," Miller said.
Bower's hearing will be held Thursday at the Grayson County Justice Center in Sherman. Stay with CBS11TV.com for the latest developments.
MORE ON THE CASE FROM THE DEFENSE
Blood Evidence:
Investigators had taken into evidence a pair of Arctic pack boots. They're boots worn over shoes or hiking boots in the snow. He wore these in Colorado on late winter hunting trips. They're size 13. His regular shoe size is 10 and a half.
Investigators found what they thought was blood evidence on the pack boots.
Les said, unbeknownst to them, in 1999, the Attorney General took all the blood evidence and sent it to the Department of Public Safety to have it retested.
Les said when results from the DPS showed "much of what they thought was blood wasn't blood and it contradicted their serum testimony at trial. And they just very quietly took those results an put those results into the District Attorney's file and that's where it stayed until my attorney found it."
The Murder Weapon:
Les said, "No gun was found. No ammunition was found."
The Southwest Forensics lab in Dallas told investigators what type of guns they were looking for. The type of gun was a .22 caliber Ruger.
One of the victims, Bob Tate, owned that type of gun. So they sent Bob Tate's Ruger to be tested at SWF's.
Les said, "They shot it and said, 'No. It's not the murder weapon. What you're looking for is a gun that is much older than this.' It needed a slide locking mechanism. He told Sheriff Driscoll exactly what they were looking for."
"When they go to my house and found out I had owned a Ruger, they were able to look at the serial number and my gun was a much NEWER version than Bob Tate's. By eliminating Bob Tate's gun, they eliminated my gun -- because I had a newer gun, not an older gun," said Les.
"No one is saying it wasn't a Ruger. But it wasn't my Ruger," he said.
The Ultra-Light Plane: CBS 11 asked Les if there was ever a receipt for the plane to prove he actually bought it and had not stolen it as the prosecution alleged.
Les paid cash for it. "There never was a receipt. The aircraft does not have a registration. It's not like an automobile," he said.
"I had the cash. I couldn't pay for all of it. But I had a good part of it," he said. "I paid him a little more than what it was worth, if he would let me pay the difference off over time."
Still, no one could prove he bought the plane.
Lying To His Wife & The FBI: "I knew I was not the one that killed these people, and I was just hoping they would find the person and eventually they would go another direction," Les said. "Before I knew it, the direction they were coming was straight at me."
"We were naive in thinking, if you're innocent, you're not going to get convicted," Shari said.
The Defense:
Shari's father recommended his neighbor, Jerry Buckner.
After the trial, "He kind of took me aside and said, 'You know, I always thought he was guilty," said Shari. "I was like, 'I can't believe you're saying this to me.'"
The contract they signed with the attorney was for $100,000.
After the attorney lost the case, Shari said he told her, "For $25,000 and the rest of the money you owe me, I'll do the appeal."
Then, Shari says, "He took off to Mexico for a vacation."
"Time/ Proximity" Defense: "The Attorney told the press the next day (after he took the case) that Les had never been in Grayson County, when Les was telling us he had been," Shari said.
Les said, "What his defense was is, 'My client has never been there.'"
Les came clean to his wife and his attorney, writing out a complete synopsis of his whereabouts the day of the murders. He told them what time he went to the Sherman airplane hanger to buy the plane, what time he left and what time he arrived home in Arlington.
Les said he arrived at the airplane hanger around 3:00. Prosecutors said he arrived around 4 p.m.
A woman who stopped to fix her child's car seat pulled into the ranch drive at 5:30 p.m.
"She describes the men and the vehicles in front of the house at roughly 5:30 in the afternoon. None of those vehicles happen to be mine, and she says in the people she can see and having looked at me, she says I was not one of these people."
"If the deceased are still alive at 5:30 in the afternoon, there's no way I can be there at 5:30 and be home in Arlington at 6:30," he added.
After he bought the plane, he had the men break it down and put it in a tube-like case. They put it on top of his Scout, tied it down and then Les took it to store at The Sportsman's Club in Mansfield.
Les said the drive from Sherman to Mansfield is 2 hours. If the men were alive at 5:30 p.m., he could not have driven to Mansfield and then be at home in Arlington at 6:30 p.m.
Shari said documents showed alternative motives for how the crime could've been committed. She said there was "something going on in the lives of one of the victims that could've been illegal." One of the victims was allegedly connected with illegal drug use.
The Jury:
"The problem faced by this jury then, they didn't have the alternative way this could've happened," Les said. "My attorney basically stuck with the defense, 'My client was never there.' He never did any investigation to show how this might've happened any other way. The jurors realized they have four citizens already dead; here is someone who has lied to the FBI; we have pieces of the airplane sitting here. I don't hold anything against that jury."
"I've had 24 years to think back on what kind of job they did," he said. "I thought it was a difficult decision. I don't find fault in what they did."
If He's Exonerated: "I'll have a little bit of catching up to do. But, I have a family to go home to. I have people that love me. I'm a little older, a little more feeble. Basically, I think I'm the same person I am now that I was when I walked in here 24 years ago," Les said.
His Wife Having Stuck By Him: "I look back on it now and think, 'How in the world did we pull it off?' It was through people taking care of us, and God taking care of us," Shari said.
"When he was in the county jail, one lady told me Les had led her husband to Christ," said Shari. "A father of one of the inmates on death row told me a few weeks ago how much Les meant to his son. The son, in his 20s, was on drugs and killed his family. The father survived."
"I have to remind myself, we're not the only people who've had hardship," she said.
Several weeks ago Les was talking to the head of the chaplaincy at the prison. Les asked him the criteria for sainthood. He wanted to nominate his wife.
The Chaplain said miracles were required.
Les told him, "Well, it's a miracle this woman has stayed with me for 40 years."
"My oldest daughter told me, 'I think I wouldn't have been the person I am today had I not had to go through this,'" Shari said.
Execution:
Les has had 5 stays of execution in his 24 years of incarceration. The closest he's come to execution is within 5 days.
Total Exoneration:
What Les is hoping for is complete exoneration. His attorneys have filed what's called a "Successor Petition."
He wants the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to send the "Successor Petition" back to the 15th Judicial court and tell them to hold a hearing on the actual innocence.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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