Mary Bowles

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Speaker 6 People say you can't have it all, and I do. Something's off with this girl.
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Speaker 8 A long buried secret unearthed.

Speaker 5 They were clearing the roadside and some debris and discovered some bones.

Speaker 5 There was a bullet lodged in her skull.

Speaker 8 A decade-old mystery comes back to life.

Speaker 10 My mom was kind of a free spirit. She was wild.

Speaker 11 She was working as a dancer in New York City.

Speaker 5 We would look out the window constantly and just pray that she would come back.

Speaker 8 But the deeper investigators dig, the more family secrets they find.

Speaker 12 She started signing the checks. There was approximately $19,000 cash.

Speaker 5 She was money hungry. She was getting checks monthly.

Speaker 11 Witnesses implicated her in the death of her own son.

Speaker 5 She looked innocent, but underneath, she was the devil.

Speaker 8 March 30th, 2011.

Speaker 8 It's just after 1.30 p.m. in Summers County, West Virginia.

Speaker 8 Employees with the Department of Highways are working along a steep hillside near Walker Mountain Road.

Speaker 12 A Department of Highways worker was in a remote area down near Hinton, West Virginia, located in the southern part of West Virginia. Very mountainous, a lot of rural areas.

Speaker 15 It was up the side of the hill, literally, right below the road.

Speaker 5 They were clearing the roadside and some debris and discovered some bones.

Speaker 8 The workers immediately contact West Virginia State Police. Investigators arrive on the scene along with a team from the state medical examiner's office.

Speaker 11 The remains they were located, it was 13 bones and the skull.

Speaker 11 Based on the clothing that was found on the body, you know you have a female.

Speaker 11 The idea that someone would leave you out to rot in the woods is just a horrifying concept.

Speaker 8 There is nothing to immediately identify the victim at the scene, but one thing is clear. Jane Doe's death was no accident.

Speaker 5 There was a bullet lodged in her skull.

Speaker 11 Just because there is a bullet hole in a person doesn't mean this is a homicide.

Speaker 11 You need to make sure you establish very clearly what the evidence is and where it is.

Speaker 8 Over the next couple of days, as forensic experts continue to comb the scene and examine the remains, they discover something unique about their Jane Doe.

Speaker 11 Two of the vertebrae were in fact fused, which was a great lead.

Speaker 21 If a person's been involved in some sort of an accident, the doctor will actually use these metal plates to fuse together the injured vertebrae. And hospitals have records of those plates.

Speaker 21 The investigators ship those bones to a forensic anthropologist.

Speaker 8 Within a few weeks, they finally have some answers.

Speaker 11 They were able to trace that serial number on the plate and determine the victim was Kathy Jo McCoy,

Speaker 11 a local woman living in the area who had been reported missing in 2003.

Speaker 5 There were so many years that lapsed from the time Kathy went missing to the time we found her bones.

Speaker 5 When you find the remains of someone, there's only one question, how'd they get there and who put them there?

Speaker 5 And in any kind of criminal case, time is your enemy. The weather and the animals and the time deteriorate that kind of evidence.

Speaker 8 Kathy Jo Lukosh-McCoy was born in Beckley, West Virginia on December 26, 1970 to parents Mary and Bill Lukash.

Speaker 11 Mary had four children, Matthew, Mark, Johnny, and Kathy Jo.

Speaker 12 My siblings and I had a great time growing up. We done all kinds of stuff, climb trees, go swimming.
My favorite memory was always going out, camping, going down to sandstone toward New River.

Speaker 15 They were always getting into some type of shenanigan or trouble.

Speaker 11 My mom loved her brothers.

Speaker 8 But Kathy Joe's relationship with her mother, Mary, was far more complicated.

Speaker 15 There was always an argument of some kind over something petty, but they would fight like cats and dogs.

Speaker 8 Born in 1944, Kathy Joe's mother, Mary Louise Barley, was an independent woman with a no-nonsense approach to life.

Speaker 12 She grew up behind a Dr. Pepper plant in Beckley.
She did not have any siblings. My mom never talked about her past.
If we tried to talk about stuff like that, she changed the subject.

Speaker 12 Mary was stubborn.

Speaker 8 Her family says Kathy Jo was just as strong-willed as her mother. More than anything, she wanted out from under her parents' roof.
In 1985, the opportunity came.

Speaker 19 My mom, Kathy Jo, married my dad, Carl Willard McCoy, at the age of, I want to say 16.

Speaker 11 She was pretty young. I have no idea how they met, how they fell in love, all that.

Speaker 8 The marriage was short-lived. And in 1988, when Kathy Jo was 17, the couple divorced after the birth of their son, Carl.

Speaker 8 Two years later, love found Kathy Jo once more.

Speaker 5 My mother met my father, and then I came along July 9th, 1990.

Speaker 5 I first met Kathy Jo when she was in her late teens.

Speaker 5 She became friends with my daughter first and then became involved with my son, who is Jasmine's father.

Speaker 8 After giving birth to Jasmine at age 19, Kathy Jo continued from one relationship to the next. None lasted, but by the age of 26, she had two more children.

Speaker 10 My mom was kind of a free spirit.

Speaker 13 She was wild,

Speaker 13 but very nurturing.

Speaker 10 Every part of her pink, she loves us.

Speaker 8 In her mid-20s, Kathy Joe attended cosmetology school and started her own business.

Speaker 12 She had her own little shop going on inside of her house.

Speaker 8 In the end, the beauty shop wasn't everything she'd hoped it would be.

Speaker 12 She wasn't really getting by on that. She went from being

Speaker 12 a hairstylist to a stripper.

Speaker 15 Her dancing was to

Speaker 11 provide.

Speaker 12 She didn't really like the line of work but she wanted to get her kids everything they wanted.

Speaker 11 Them kids got treated like gold.

Speaker 11 I mean those are the best Christmases we probably had.

Speaker 15 I mean she had three kids at that time. You know she tried to provide for us as much as she could.

Speaker 8 In 1995, tragedy struck the McCoy family when Kathy Joe's older brother Mark was in a serious car accident.

Speaker 12 My little brother, after he got in that car accident in Tennessee, he died.

Speaker 5 My mother, she saw Mark as her baby. So when he passed, you know, it broke her.

Speaker 8 Three years later, in September 1998, Kathy Joe's world was turned upside down yet again by another horrific car crash, this time leaving 27-year-old Kathy Jo clinging to life.

Speaker 15 She had flipped a geo tracker, I think it was like eight times.

Speaker 5 She broke her arm and hurt both of her legs, which kind of messed her up for a while so she wasn't able to walk.

Speaker 8 or really take care of herself for a while.

Speaker 5 One of her arms had almost been severed.

Speaker 5 They had done surgery to stabilize her neck and to try to reattach her arm.

Speaker 5 And she said, I'm going to fight because I have to get back to my babies.

Speaker 21 One surgery was to perform a fusion on her vertebrae, to fuse those two together with a metal plate.

Speaker 8 After three months in the hospital, Kathy Jo was released. But her dancing career was over.

Speaker 15 Her arm was always upright in a stuck position against her chest.

Speaker 15 She couldn't straighten it out completely.

Speaker 8 She was forced to rely on those around her for help.

Speaker 15 She had gotten back with a prior boyfriend, Jake. He knew the family pretty well.
He would help provide.

Speaker 21 He really loved mom.

Speaker 8 Kathy Joe's mother, Mary, and her new husband, Jack, also offered to help out.

Speaker 12 Every now and then Marin would watch them kids.

Speaker 5 Mary helped her to get signed up to get some type of compensation from the accident.

Speaker 17 The injuries that Kathy Jo sustained in this car wreck were so severe it left her pretty much unable to work and she just very much depended on these social security checks that were coming in.

Speaker 8 After two years of recovery, Kathy Joe hoped to drive again, but her injuries prevented her from getting a license in West Virginia.

Speaker 15 Her disability prevented her from driving because, again, she could only operate one hand, one arm. So she couldn't drive, but she had to be able to drive.

Speaker 8 While things remained tense between Kathy Joe and Mary, on June 5th, 2000, Mary offered to drive her daughter to Tennessee with the hope of getting a license there.

Speaker 15 So I guess in her mind, mind, if I go out of state and attempt to get an out-of-state license, maybe she could get one to be able to drive. Mary was supposed to help her with this.

Speaker 15 They instructed me to keep an eye on my sister, Jasmine.

Speaker 15 My mom even took a suitcase with her. She was expecting me back, I guess, the end of that weekend.

Speaker 15 She seemed normal.

Speaker 11 I love you.

Speaker 15 See you at Monday.

Speaker 8 Mary surprised everyone when she returned home alone nine hours later, saying there had been a change of plans.

Speaker 15 Mary said your mother saw some friends on the corner in Hinton, so I dropped her off with them and she'll be home later on this evening.

Speaker 8 But the evening passed and Kathy Jo never returned.

Speaker 5 Mary said she ran off. It was really weird to us, even as children.
We would look out the window constantly and just pray that she would come back.

Speaker 8 Now, in 2011, 11 years later, West Virginia state police have identified Kathy Joe's remains along a rural West Virginia roadside.

Speaker 11 Examination by a medical examiner determined a.22 caliber round was launched in Kathy's skull.

Speaker 5 Once the state police was able to determine that they were Kathy's bones and that she had been missing for some time, then the investigation started.

Speaker 8 As police dig into Kathy Joe's missing persons file, something strikes them as suspicious.

Speaker 21 Kathy Joe McCoy

Speaker 21 was last seen on June the 5th of 2000, but no one filed a police report until 2003.

Speaker 17 It's hard to imagine the idea that someone someone would be missing for three years and nobody has gone to the police.

Speaker 8 Coming up, a fraud investigation leads detectives to their first suspect.

Speaker 12 She had a criminal history spanning in the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 15 I was just a kid myself, but I knew something was very wrong.

Speaker 11 Very, very wrong.

Speaker 8 Summers County, West Virginia, 2011.

Speaker 8 After discovering the remains of Kathy Jo McCoy, a mother who went missing in June of 2000, investigators are questioning why her disappearance was not reported until 2003.

Speaker 5 Certainly, after so many years, I think it's very odd that family would not file a missing persons report.

Speaker 5 So I think that's the first red flag.

Speaker 8 Investigators discover that Kathy Joe was ultimately reported missing under strange circumstances.

Speaker 11 So in 2003, the bank where Kathy Joe McCoy had her account notified the Social Security Administration and they believed there'd been fraudulent activity on that account.

Speaker 12 We determined that Kathy Kathy McCoy's mother, Mary Bowles, had been cashing checks that were sent to Kathy McCoy from the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 12 I interviewed several of the bank employees. No one had seen Kathy McCoy in about three years.

Speaker 12 All the bank employees confirmed that Mary would cash Kathy McCoy's checks and explained to them that the reason she was doing that is because Kathy was too ill to come in and do it for herself.

Speaker 12 So Mary would bring in Kathy's driver's license and

Speaker 12 would also be a second endorser on the check to get the check cashed. There was approximately $19,000 cashed.

Speaker 12 I ordered photocopies of all of the checks that were cashed and deposited over the entitlement period for Kathy McCoy from the Treasury Department.

Speaker 8 As Agent Morton examines the checks, a disturbing detail catches his eye.

Speaker 12 I was able to determine very quickly that sometime in mid-2000, Kathy's signature changed on the checks.

Speaker 12 This lady had been missing for three years. At this point, I believe that her mother, Mary Bowles, was forging Kathy's name on the checks.

Speaker 8 With his suspicions growing, Agent Morton runs a background check on Mary Bowles.

Speaker 12 In any investigation, we're pulling records for everyone involved. It appeared that she had a criminal history spanning the 80s and 90s with charges of various types of fraud, forgery.

Speaker 8 After looking into Mary's past, fraud agents confront her in October 2003.

Speaker 8 To their surprise, she doesn't put up much of a fight.

Speaker 12 She was very quick to admit everything. She admitted she knew that it was wrong to do that.

Speaker 8 But she says she had a good reason.

Speaker 11 Mary indicated that she was in fact utilizing that money from Kathy's checks in order to take care of Kathy's children who were currently residing with her.

Speaker 8 Mary claims someone needed to step in and support her grandchildren after her daughter took off in 2000.

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles did not paint a very favorable picture of her daughter, Kathy.

Speaker 11 She basically told investigators that she would be prone to run off with random men.

Speaker 12 She told me the story of how she hadn't seen Kathy in three years.

Speaker 12 She had taken Kathy out, and they ran into some acquaintances. So Mary left her, and that was the last she had ever seen her.

Speaker 12 And I just found that very hard to believe.

Speaker 12 I said, That's your daughter. Why would you not file a missing persons report? She said, Well, she's an adult, she can do what she wants.

Speaker 8 In October 2003, Social Security investigators arrest Mary on forgery charges.

Speaker 10 We were in foster care maybe

Speaker 5 six months to a year. I can't remember, but I was aware that she was arrested.
And then finally, my brother went to live with Carl McCoy's side of the family.

Speaker 5 And then I went to live with my nana, Vicki Call, and my granddaddy. And then Jessica went with her dad.

Speaker 8 Still, Tim Morton can't help but wonder, if Mary was involved in defrauding Kathy Joe, could she be capable of worse?

Speaker 12 There was that lingering feeling that I couldn't let go that, you know, that's the least of her worries is this check fraud.

Speaker 12 It was a couple months into my investigation that I contacted the West Virginia State Police and voiced my concerns and told them what I'd found.

Speaker 11 So at that point, West Virginia State Police made this an official missing persons case.

Speaker 8 With Mary Bowles in jail, West Virginia State Police launched their own investigation into Kathy Joe's disappearance in November 2003.

Speaker 5 There were so many years that lapsed from the time Kathy went missing. Tom is your enemy because

Speaker 5 people's memories fade, people die,

Speaker 5 they move away,

Speaker 5 and so it makes it very difficult.

Speaker 8 Police start by interviewing Kathy Joe's eldest kids, 16-year-old Carl and 13-year-old Jasmine.

Speaker 15 I mean, I was just a kid myself, but I knew something was very wrong. Very, very wrong.
My mom would not just up and leave like that.

Speaker 8 Three days after Kathy Joe left, the children say they were taken to their grandmother Mary's by Kathy Joe's boyfriend, Jake.

Speaker 15 I believe it was on a Monday or something, after the weekend, but Jake dropped us off with Mary. A couple days go by.
Well, I guess, you know, your mom, she just abandoned y'all.

Speaker 12 I did try to contact Kathy Joe. But my mama had said that she had moved and she didn't want nothing to to do with the family.

Speaker 11 That's what I heard.

Speaker 15 So I just went with her.

Speaker 10 At that point in time, living with Mary, we weren't allowed to go outside.

Speaker 13 We weren't allowed to go to school.

Speaker 10 We basically had to stay inside all the time. Mary wouldn't let us eat a lot.

Speaker 10 I remember we'd ask for food and she'd tell us no.

Speaker 15 This has been probably two and a half years of, you know, mom being gone.

Speaker 15 The living conditions with Mary were terrible. Padlock infrigerators, you know, the verbal abuse.

Speaker 8 Investigators immediately track down Kathy Joe's former boyfriend for questioning.

Speaker 11 Jake provided an alibi for himself indicating he was at work, works in a mine. He was in that mine from 5 a.m.
until late into the evening on the day that Kathy was last seen.

Speaker 8 Not only does Jake's alibi check out, he passes a polygraph with flying colors.

Speaker 8 The missing persons investigation is just getting underway in December 2003 when Mary Bowles pleads guilty to forgery.

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles received an 18-month prison sentence.

Speaker 12 I think Mary thought, you know, she admits to the social security fraud and that, you know, she'll plead guilty, do her time, pay back money, and I'll go away.

Speaker 12 But from the beginning, I was convinced that there was something much more disturbing going on.

Speaker 8 Coming up, more details of Mary's questionable past come to light.

Speaker 12 She told me that she did feel like Mary did something with Kathy.

Speaker 8 Could Kathy Joe still be alive? alive?

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles, she indicated that she had made contact with her daughter Kathy.

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Speaker 8 In December 2003, Mary Bowles pleads guilty to forgery and finds herself at the center of her own daughter's missing persons investigation.

Speaker 8 However, when detectives interview Mary in a West Virginia jail, she makes a bold claim.

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles indicated that she had made contact with her daughter, Kathy, while she was in custody on federal charges, and that Kathy appeared to be fine, and she was working as a dancer in New York City.

Speaker 8 But investigators aren't buying it.

Speaker 16 She required a cane to walk from her car accident.

Speaker 11 It was impossible to believe that Kathy Joe would be working as a dancer anywhere.

Speaker 8 Shortly after Mary's guilty plea, her friend and former roommate Geraldine Tincher contacts Agent Morton.

Speaker 12 Mary lived with a lady named Geraldine Tincher, and I'm not sure of their relationship, but they lived together on and off for years. Initially, her story was that Basically, she

Speaker 12 didn't have any reason not to believe Mary about the story of Kathy.

Speaker 8 Geraldine says after Mary went to prison, she went through Mary's safe.

Speaker 12 Geraldine finds a letter from the Social Security Administration addressed to herself, and she realizes that she had been awarded benefits.

Speaker 12 Geraldine had applied for widow's benefits, but she thought that she was just denied that. What happened was Mary intercepted the award letter.
So that's when Geraldine called me.

Speaker 12 I did an investigation on that and found out it was a little over $10,000 that Mary had stolen from Geraldine.

Speaker 12 So we went back to the grand jury and we got those charges added.

Speaker 21 While Mary Bowles is on the radar of the police, there really wasn't anything to concretely say she was responsible for Kathy Joe's death.

Speaker 11 In 2005, Mary Bowles is released from federal custody. She returns to her residence and reassumes her life.

Speaker 8 In fact, six years pass with no movement on the missing person's case until the discovery of Kathy Joe's remains in 2011.

Speaker 11 The normal procedure is to notify Next and Kin of the death.

Speaker 11 In this case, Next and Kin was determined to be her mother, Mary Bowles.

Speaker 8 And yet, when officers attempt to locate Mary, they come up empty-handed.

Speaker 11 Investigators were not able to track down Mary.

Speaker 21 They're contacting her family members. Every attempt that they made at that point to locate Mary Bowles,

Speaker 21 the troopers came up empty each and every time.

Speaker 11 Once investigators exhaust all attempts to contact Mary Bowles, they've decided to go ahead and go to Kathy Jo McCoy's children and advise them their mother has been found.

Speaker 8 On April 26, 2011, investigators locate Kathy Joe's 20-year-old daughter, Jasmine, who was raised by her father and paternal grandmother, Vicki.

Speaker 5 They first came by and asked Jasmine for a DNA sample.

Speaker 5 I was praying that it wasn't going to be a match

Speaker 5 because I could see how heartbroken my baby was.

Speaker 5 But then when they came back, they told us.

Speaker 5 I was mostly in shock because in my mind, I just thought and hoped that she was somewhere out there.

Speaker 8 Investigators learned from Jasmine that her grandmother, Mary, didn't seem all that concerned when Kathy Jo disappeared.

Speaker 5 Mary hurried up to go and get Medicaid and food stamps in her name and to switch custody of us to her.

Speaker 8 Jasmine's grandmother Vicki tells investigators that a month after Kathy Joe disappeared in July 2000, she received an invitation from Mary.

Speaker 5 The day of Jasmine's birthday, Mary invited us to her trailer in Pipestem, West Virginia, to celebrate with Jasmine and the kids. She told us that Kathy Jo had left with three guys.

Speaker 8 Vicki tells investigators that what happened next was absolutely chilling.

Speaker 5 Mary says, I want to show you something. And I'm thinking, well, maybe she's going to show me a gift that she bought for the little girl or whatever.

Speaker 5 And she goes in and she pulls out this 22 and shows it to me. And I said, aren't you afraid to have that in the house when you've got kids?

Speaker 5 And she said, oh, they don't pay any attention to anything I do.

Speaker 7 And she put it away.

Speaker 5 But I wondered that day why she would do that.

Speaker 8 The story rings a bell for investigators. The caliber gun Mary showed Vicki all those years ago is the same caliber as the bullet recovered from Kathy Joe's skull.

Speaker 21 The victim died as a result of a.22 caliber gunshot wound.

Speaker 11 At this point, investigators have bumped up the pursuit for Mary Bowles. It's gone into multiple states.

Speaker 8 On April 27, 2011, three weeks into the search for Mary, homicide investigators talked to Kathy Joe's son, Carl McCoy, who was only 12 when his mother went missing.

Speaker 15 When mom's remains were found, I completely went downhill from there.

Speaker 11 You know what happened?

Speaker 15 You suspect it, but there's still that little glimmer of hope that she may come back. Maybe there's some merit to what Mary is trying to tell us.

Speaker 15 Because she's your grandmother, right? She wouldn't lie to you about something like that. This is her dog.

Speaker 8 Carl points out that Kathy Joe isn't the first family member to die under suspicious circumstances.

Speaker 11 Carl related a story to investigators about his uncle Mark, who at age 17 was in a very serious car accident in Pigeon Force, Tennessee.

Speaker 21 Mary Bowles, she decides to yank him out of the hospital.

Speaker 21 She proceeds to take Mark to a hotel not too far from that location.

Speaker 5 His mom signed him out against medical advice. Mark screamed in pain most of the night, and Mary wouldn't let anybody in to help him.

Speaker 12 The only one that was in that room was him and Mark's girlfriend. She just told us Mary took him, laid the mattress, you know, against the door where they couldn't get out.

Speaker 12 He died right there in the motel room. Died from a lower punctured intestine, drowned it in his own fluids.

Speaker 16 No remorse.

Speaker 12 That's like it didn't phase her.

Speaker 8 According to the family, once back home, Mary started looking for an attorney.

Speaker 12 Then she turns around, sues the hospital.

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles filed action against the hospital. She successfully sued them for the amount of $24,000.

Speaker 21 Based on all of her past behavior, she, yes, has shown a propensity to take advantage of even her loved ones if it meant some money going into her pocket.

Speaker 18 She's had a lot of people leave out with her and not come back.

Speaker 8 Coming up, the hunt is on.

Speaker 11 They discover her white full-size pickup truck parked in the yard.

Speaker 8 And a former friend is no longer afraid to share what she knows.

Speaker 21 Mary had been traipsing around in the woods all day, and she was sopping wet from her hair all the way down to her feet.

Speaker 8 After years spent under a cloud of suspicion, Mary Bowles is now suspect number one in the murder of her daughter, Kathy Joe McCoy.

Speaker 11 Family, as well as other witnesses, have implicated her in the death of her own son and her daughter.

Speaker 11 Investigators have bumped up the pursuit. It's gone into multiple states.

Speaker 11 She appears to be eluding law enforcement, but that hasn't stopped investigators.

Speaker 8 They continue to reach out to potential witnesses who might help bolster their case, including Mary's former friend and roommate, Geraldine Tincher.

Speaker 11 Shortly after Mary Bowles went to prison for fraud in 2003, her roommate, Geraldine Tincher, discovered that she, in fact, was a victim of fraud.

Speaker 5 Geraldine's not a fan of Mary Bowles anymore because she stole from her.

Speaker 8 When state investigators circle back to Geraldine, she doesn't hold back.

Speaker 21 Geraldine Tincher was able to say about the night of June the 5th that when Mary came into the house, it appeared as if Mary had been traipsing around in the woods all day just by the way her clothes were and that she was sopping wet from her hair all the way down to her feet.

Speaker 12 Geraldine asked Mary what was going on. She said, oh, I just dropped Kathy off with some friends and she's going to get her own ride home.

Speaker 12 Geraldine thought it was odd that Kathy's purse was still in the front seat of the van.

Speaker 12 She sees Mary getting in Kathy's purse and getting her driver's license out of her purse.

Speaker 12 And she said, I'm getting her driver's license license because I'm going to go to the state police and file a missing persons report. One was never filed with the West Virginia State Police.

Speaker 8 But investigators know that's not the real reason she wanted Kathy Joe's ID.

Speaker 12 She was getting that driver's license to cash Kathy's checks at the bank. Geraldine said, the children.
She said she wanted custody of those children.

Speaker 12 There had been a feud between the two of them over the children since the accident. Mary wanted custody, and Kathy would not give up custody of those children.

Speaker 8 On April 28th, 2011, detectives speak with Kathy Joe's brother, Matthew Lukash, and get an unexpected break after weeks of searching for Mary Bowles.

Speaker 11 Matthew told investigators he recently received a phone call from his mother and the caller ID showed that she was actually in the local area in West Virginia.

Speaker 8 West Virginia State Police immediately go looking for Mary.

Speaker 11 When investigators get to the address, based on tracking of the phone number, they discover Mary's white full-size pickup truck parked in the yard.

Speaker 11 When investigators attempted to notify that Kathy, in fact, was deceased and her remains remains were recovered, Mary indicated she already was aware of the fact.

Speaker 8 Mary tells investigators she saw the story on the local news.

Speaker 21 Investigators ask her to go back to the station for a statement.

Speaker 8 State troopers immediately bring Mary in for questioning.

Speaker 8 She insists she knows nothing about her daughter's murder.

Speaker 5 Mary Bowles was the last person who saw Kathy.

Speaker 5 And Mary Bowles benefited from Kathy's disappearance and ultimate death.

Speaker 5 When you put all those little pieces together, coming home wet and muddy, all of that behavior added up to someone that you have to believe is very culpable of this crime.

Speaker 8 But Mary stands her ground.

Speaker 11 Mary Bowles does agree to take a polygraph examination.

Speaker 11 She ends up failing the polygraph with deception noted.

Speaker 8 Authorities arrest Mary Bowles for the shooting death of her daughter, Kathy Jo.

Speaker 11 The fact that she failed the polygraph, her track record on committing fraud and a life full of lies,

Speaker 11 coupled with possession of a firearm, it's painting a picture to the investigators.

Speaker 5 We charged her with first-degree murder.

Speaker 8 Coming up, will Mary finally face justice?

Speaker 5 An 11-year crime is just a very difficult crime to pursue.

Speaker 8 Or will she escape yet again?

Speaker 5 The trial was just not going to happen.

Speaker 8 Following Mary Bowles' arrest, prosecutors present their case to a grand jury 11 years after her daughter, Kathy Jo, disappeared.

Speaker 8 With the help of Geraldine Tincher's testimony, prosecutors secure what they need.

Speaker 5 Geraldine testified at the preliminary.

Speaker 5 She was a wonderful witness. Mary Bowles was indicted for first-degree murder.

Speaker 7 It was an uphill battle after preliminary hearing.

Speaker 5 An 11-year crime is just a very difficult crime to pursue.

Speaker 11 Number one, you don't have a murder weapon. And number two, a lack of forensic evidence because of the amount of time.

Speaker 11 There's not an ability to get anything DNA-wise on clothing or the crime scene with drag marks. There's none of that evidence that exists.
And the age of the case is going against you.

Speaker 11 The memories of witnesses, they are at a disadvantage in a number of areas.

Speaker 8 Prosecutors face the lingering questions, including exactly what went down between Mary and Kathy Joe when they left home on June 5th, 2000.

Speaker 5 We believe there was some premeditation, that Mary planned for some period of time.

Speaker 8 Though they can't prove exactly how Mary killed Kathy Joe, prosecutors are confident about why.

Speaker 11 The one theme that seems to be constant in this case is greed. Mary Bowles is a prolific liar, someone that's committed fraud her entire life.

Speaker 5 Mary looked innocent, but underneath she was the devil. Mary was money hungry.
My mother was getting social security checks monthly.

Speaker 5 She was getting food stamps for us kids because she didn't have a job where she was disabled. So Mary thought that if she had us children, then she would get those benefits.

Speaker 5 And my mother stood in the way of that.

Speaker 8 While the family eagerly awaits Mary's day in court, they are dealt a setback.

Speaker 21 Mary was indicted on murder charges and the trial was set to go and then she had received a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Speaker 13 You could see the decline in her health.

Speaker 5 We would have hearings and it got to the point where the ambulance had to actually get her and bring her up to the courtroom in either a wheelchair or at, I think, the last hearing, a stretcher.

Speaker 5 What happened during our case is Ms. Bowles' health deteriorated to the point that I knew that having a trial was just not going to happen.

Speaker 8 In 2016, Mary Bowles is released from jail and placed in hospice care. The prosecution dismisses their case against her.

Speaker 5 I left the prosecuting attorney's office in December 2016. I dismissed it before I left because I didn't want to leave a case like that to my next in line.

Speaker 8 Mary Bowles dies on July 5th, 2017.

Speaker 5 When I got the notice that Mary Bowles was dead, I took a deep breath. Mary Bowles was not going to hurt anyone again.

Speaker 8 But for Kathy Joe's family, the news brings mixed emotions.

Speaker 5 I was mad when I found out my mom will never get justice like she deserves.

Speaker 13 My mother was

Speaker 5 kind,

Speaker 7 beautiful.

Speaker 5 She would do anything for her kids. I just want people to know that My mother just didn't deserve it.

Speaker 13 And she was a good person.

Speaker 11 Justice wasn't served.

Speaker 12 Was not served at all. That woman never had remorse about anything.

Speaker 10 What I want them to remember about Kathy Jo, my mother, is that she was one of the most loving, free-spirited, outgoing, beautiful people.

Speaker 10 And she was human. She had a voice.
And though she ain't here to say it right now, we are.

Speaker 13 Her voice will be heard.

Speaker 8 Kathy Joe McCoy was laid to rest by her family on March 11th, 2007 in Hinton, West Virginia.

Speaker 9 Mary Bowles was never tried or convicted of Kathy Joe's murder or the death of her son, Mark.

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