As a result of a pretty interesting DNA hunt, a man has been charged with the murder of 14-year-old Eileen Adams [the link to an article I had no longer works]. Unfortunately, they don’t know where he is to arrest him. They believe he’s homeless in California. (I learned this researching my book. It’s one thing to figure out who did it. It’s quite another to then find them.)

This part of the story kills me:

“Mr. Bowman’s marriage ended in divorce. His wife apparently knew the teen was in the basement and came forward with a statement in 1981 that he was involved in the slaying. She told police that she had waited to come forward because she was afraid. Without her, Detective Beavers said, police would not have identified him as a suspect.”

She couldn’t have come forward while the child was in the basement?? Her husband would have been immediately arrested, there would have been no danger to her, and Eileen might be alive today.

This article details the DNA side of the case. Good work, Lucas County Cold Case Task Force. Having gotten to know the father of another murdered 14-year-old girl, I know that Eileen’s father, who is now in a nursing home and has been waiting 39 years, has badly needed to hear the words that you were finally able to tell him: we know who did it.