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Episode 1_ A Dangerous Game(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:14
Speaker 1: It's a story that, at least in the United States,
0:16
Speaker 1: you've heard one hundred times before. Two teenage boys are
0:20
Speaker 1: playing with a gun that's been stolen from a father's
0:22
Speaker 1: night stand. The gun goes off, and one of the
0:25
Speaker 1: boys is killed. A tragedy, but an all too common one,
0:29
Speaker 1: and at first that's what was believed to have happened
0:32
Speaker 1: to fifteen year old Brian Bowling. It was October of
0:36
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. Brian and his best friend were hanging
0:39
Speaker 1: out in his bedroom when, as the friend would tell
0:42
Speaker 1: police later that night, the boys got the idea to
0:45
Speaker 1: play Russian Roulette. The police heard how Brian had loaded
0:48
Speaker 1: a single round into a thirty eight revolver, spun the cylinder,
0:52
Speaker 1: held the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger.
0:55
Speaker 1: This particular revolver had five chambers, which meant there would
0:59
Speaker 1: have been an eighty percent chance that Brian would win
1:02
Speaker 1: the game and nothing would happen. But something did happen.
1:06
Speaker 1: A bullet was fired, Brian was shot in the head,
1:09
Speaker 1: and he died the next day. What seemed at first
1:12
Speaker 1: to have been a tragic self inflicted accident soon became
1:15
Speaker 1: something much more complicated, though within a few days that
1:20
Speaker 1: accident had become instead a reckless homicide, and then within
1:24
Speaker 1: a few months that reckless homicide had become a murder conspiracy.
1:29
Speaker 1: Two teenagers came Joshua's story and Darrel Lee Clark were
1:33
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison for their role in the
1:35
Speaker 1: death of Brian Bowling. They're still there today. According to
1:39
Speaker 1: the investigators and prosecutors who brought the case to trial,
1:43
Speaker 1: this is a story about a group of teenagers who
1:45
Speaker 1: plotted to murder their friend and almost got away with it.
1:49
Speaker 1: But according to the teenagers accused of this crime, this
1:52
Speaker 1: is a story about how investigators who were determined to
1:54
Speaker 1: get a conviction were able to conjure up evidence that
1:57
Speaker 1: transformed an accident into a conspiracy. So what really happened
2:01
Speaker 1: to Brian Bowling twenty five years ago? And if it
2:04
Speaker 1: wasn't an accident, who was really responsible for his death?
2:13
Speaker 1: This season on Proof.
2:18
Speaker 2: Doubt, if Biles wanted both of these guys, he wanted
2:21
Speaker 2: both of these boys.
2:22
Speaker 1: He's just a dirty, dirty cop.
2:24
Speaker 3: He put two boys and ruined their life and put
2:26
Speaker 3: them in prison.
2:27
Speaker 4: That's rough right there.
2:29
Speaker 3: They dug his cash it up. We get this picture
2:32
Speaker 3: out there that want to Cane's buddies didn't put it
2:34
Speaker 3: in there.
2:35
Speaker 5: And he said if a brother's pout knarking on another brother,
2:38
Speaker 5: Finishment was dead, David here of deathly.
2:42
Speaker 6: He don't they Eve was gonna come and kill him.
2:45
Speaker 4: The whole house is empty. You can see through the
2:47
Speaker 4: front window. I'll go knock it. Kin hurt tonight right.
2:54
Speaker 1: He was last words. But when I found out they
2:57
Speaker 1: were accusing Kine and Leovik, I really like how the
3:01
Speaker 1: world they did Lake and the did it he was
3:04
Speaker 1: with us.
3:05
Speaker 7: I don't feel out Josh had the medalist in him
3:08
Speaker 7: to just co blood kill him.
3:11
Speaker 6: Would you ever wonder if they would bless an accident.
3:15
Speaker 6: It's part of me that won't belief that it was
3:21
Speaker 6: an accident.
3:23
Speaker 1: It's just it's been controversial. What do you mean, well,
3:26
Speaker 1: they still won't slash Rush live.
3:29
Speaker 2: I guess it's whatever side you won't believe. Hi.
3:37
Speaker 1: My name is Susan Simpson. I'm an attorney and also
3:40
Speaker 1: a podcaster. I previously hosted the Undisclosed podcast, where, along
3:43
Speaker 1: with my co host, we covered wrongful convictions around the
3:46
Speaker 1: United States and reinvestigated cases to uncover new evidence and
3:50
Speaker 1: to find out how and why the criminal justice system
3:52
Speaker 1: had gotten things wrong.
3:54
Speaker 2: Hi.
3:55
Speaker 8: My name is Jacinda Davis and I'm a true crime
3:57
Speaker 8: TV producer. If you watch ID I've probably seen some
4:01
Speaker 8: of my work on shows like Evil Lives Here, Shattered,
4:04
Speaker 8: and Killer in Question. Usually I stay invisible behind the camera,
4:08
Speaker 8: so this is new but exciting territory for me. On
4:11
Speaker 8: this season of Proof, you'll also hear from Kevin Fitzpatrick,
4:15
Speaker 8: president of Red Marble Media, who joined us on the
4:18
Speaker 8: road from time to time, and Dan, the cameraman who
4:21
Speaker 8: followed us around as we criss crossed the foothills of
4:24
Speaker 8: northern Georgia. Susan and I began working together in twenty
4:36
Speaker 8: twenty on the Jeff Titus case out of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
4:40
Speaker 8: Titus was convicted of shooting and killing two hunters an
4:43
Speaker 8: opening day of Deer season back in nineteen ninety. If
4:47
Speaker 8: you don't know that story, you can listen to it
4:49
Speaker 8: on the Undisclosed podcast or watch Killer in Question. The
4:53
Speaker 8: hunt it streaming on Discovery Plus. While we were working
4:57
Speaker 8: together on the Titus case, we started talking about the
5:00
Speaker 8: Brian Bowling case, a case from Floyd County, Georgia, and
5:03
Speaker 8: we decided to team up to try something new, a
5:06
Speaker 8: show that's a collaboration between a podcaster and a TV producer.
5:11
Speaker 8: You can listen to this show like you would any podcast,
5:14
Speaker 8: and you can follow us everywhere with the handle at
5:17
Speaker 8: proof Crime Pod and on our website proofcrimepod dot com.
5:30
Speaker 1: In season two of the Undisclosed podcast, we covered the
5:34
Speaker 1: case of Joey Watkins. He was another teenager who was
5:37
Speaker 1: convicted of murder in Floyd County, Georgia. It was Joey
5:40
Speaker 1: who first told me about the Brian Bowling case and
5:43
Speaker 1: introduced me to Darrel Lee Clark.
5:45
Speaker 5: This is a prepaid collect call from to accept Chorges
5:49
Speaker 5: Press one.
5:50
Speaker 3: Thank you for using secure us. Hello, hy Lee, Hi, Sirda.
5:59
Speaker 1: Lee Clark told me about his friend Brian, about the
6:01
Speaker 1: investigation into Brian's death and how he and his co
6:04
Speaker 1: defendant came Joshua's story had ended up in prison serving
6:08
Speaker 1: life sentences for conspiracy to come at murder.
6:10
Speaker 3: How in the hell did I wind up in here?
6:15
Speaker 3: What did I do? I asked myself at all times
6:19
Speaker 3: those and I said, what did I ever do in
6:22
Speaker 3: this life that was so bad that I wound up
6:25
Speaker 3: in here for something I didn't do?
6:32
Speaker 8: When Susan and I first started digging into this case.
6:35
Speaker 8: One of the first things we did was to request
6:37
Speaker 8: the trial transcripts from the Floyd County Courthouse. The initial
6:41
Speaker 8: response from the court clerk was not encouraging. Sorry, we
6:45
Speaker 8: were told we can't find the transcripts for that case.
6:48
Speaker 8: Eventually we would start to get records, some of them anyway,
6:52
Speaker 8: But at the beginning, the only way we had of
6:54
Speaker 8: learning more about what happened to Brian Bolling was by
6:57
Speaker 8: talking to the people whose lives had been impacted by
7:00
Speaker 8: his death.
7:01
Speaker 4: That's why last year.
7:03
Speaker 8: We traveled down to the tiny rural community of Silver
7:06
Speaker 8: Creek in Floyd County, Georgia.
7:10
Speaker 4: So we're here with Amanda.
7:13
Speaker 1: Do you go by Mandy or Amanda?
7:15
Speaker 6: My family calls me many so either or Aanda, Mandy
7:20
Speaker 6: either or? And you are Brian's sister, yes, sister.
7:24
Speaker 1: How old were you?
7:25
Speaker 6: I was seventeen, just turned seventeen in August.
7:28
Speaker 1: So you and Brian are pretty close in age.
7:29
Speaker 6: Ye, you're older, but twenty one months apart.
7:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're almost peers.
7:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were very very close, very close. It was
7:38
Speaker 6: like whenever he died, there was a part of me
7:41
Speaker 6: that died.
7:42
Speaker 8: Brian's sister, Amanda, still lives in Silver Creek today. Actually,
7:46
Speaker 8: she lives just next door to the trailer where her
7:48
Speaker 8: brother died all those years ago. In the years since,
7:52
Speaker 8: Amanda has done her best to keep her brother's memory alive.
7:55
Speaker 8: Every year on the anniversary of his death, she posts
7:59
Speaker 8: heartfelt tributes on social media, reminding people in the community
8:03
Speaker 8: about her family's loss.
8:05
Speaker 1: Do you talk about Bryan a lot?
8:07
Speaker 2: I do?
8:08
Speaker 9: I do.
8:09
Speaker 6: I feel like I have to because I don't want
8:12
Speaker 6: to forget about anything, which I know I never will.
8:16
Speaker 7: But you know, I have forgotten what his voice sounded like.
8:20
Speaker 6: I have forgotten that.
8:21
Speaker 1: But it seems like a lot of people haven't wanted
8:23
Speaker 1: to talk about this case over the years.
8:26
Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot of people. You know, a lot of
8:28
Speaker 6: people hush hush about it. And now, you know, people
8:32
Speaker 6: ask me, yeah, what do you want to know? You know,
8:35
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what everything I know. You know, I
8:38
Speaker 6: don't mind sharing the store. I like to, you know,
8:41
Speaker 6: it helps me.
8:43
Speaker 8: For the most part. This is a case that Floyd
8:45
Speaker 8: County has forgotten. Although even back in nineteen ninety six
8:50
Speaker 8: when Brian died, and in nineteen ninety eight when the
8:53
Speaker 8: trial occurred. It didn't get much attention then either.
8:57
Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised. No one's ever there hasn't
8:59
Speaker 1: really been any coverage.
9:01
Speaker 6: Now, not really. There was Channel two come and you know,
9:05
Speaker 6: covered just a little story of it. But that was ia, you.
9:09
Speaker 4: Know, back at the time.
9:11
Speaker 8: Yeah, we showed the news segment from Channel two to Amanda.
9:15
Speaker 8: It was the first time she'd seen it in twenty
9:17
Speaker 8: five years.
9:18
Speaker 10: Josh is free.
9:19
Speaker 11: On one the mother of the victim.
9:21
Speaker 10: Josh was screaming, I didn't mean to kill him, and
9:25
Speaker 10: then he said he shot hisself.
9:27
Speaker 11: He's two best friends, teenagers listening to ear splitting music
9:31
Speaker 11: in the back bedroom of this home. The victim's mother
9:34
Speaker 11: and other family members in their room home. They hear
9:37
Speaker 11: a pop. The mother thinks the stereo speakers have burst.
9:40
Speaker 11: She goes to see what's happened.
9:42
Speaker 10: And when I got in there, instead of speakers being burst,
9:47
Speaker 10: my son was dead.
9:48
Speaker 6: One I remember saying, yeah, that's the only one that
9:51
Speaker 6: I think that was ever. Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.
9:57
Speaker 6: It just burns back memories, you know, probably something that
10:00
Speaker 6: I had tucked away.
10:02
Speaker 1: You know who was there in the video as you saw.
10:06
Speaker 6: That was my mom my dad, my husband went to
10:10
Speaker 6: was my boyfriend at the time. He's my husband who've
10:13
Speaker 6: been married twenty five years now.
10:15
Speaker 8: Initially, everyone thought that Brian's death had been a tragic
10:19
Speaker 8: but self inflicted accident. That all changed two days after
10:23
Speaker 8: the shooting.
10:24
Speaker 11: Shot in the head, fifteen year old Brian Bowling, his
10:26
Speaker 11: best friend, seventeen year old Josh Story first told police
10:29
Speaker 11: they were playing Russian Roulette, that Brian shot himself. Then
10:33
Speaker 11: Josh changed his tail says he Josh had the gun
10:37
Speaker 11: and it went off accidentally.
10:39
Speaker 10: This was his best friend. He trusted him with his
10:42
Speaker 10: life and he took his life.
10:47
Speaker 1: You may have noticed that Darrell Lee Clark is not
10:49
Speaker 1: mentioned at all in this new segment. That's because at
10:52
Speaker 1: first there was only one teenager arrested in this case,
10:56
Speaker 1: Brian's friend Josh, who everyone agrees was with Brian and
10:59
Speaker 1: his bad when Brian was shot.
11:04
Speaker 8: Josh's full name is Cain Joshua's story. To make things
11:09
Speaker 8: just a little more confusing in this case, you're going
11:11
Speaker 8: to hear him refer to by both his first and
11:14
Speaker 8: middle names. To Brian Bowling and his family, Josh was Josh,
11:20
Speaker 8: but to his parents and to some of his other friends.
11:22
Speaker 8: He was known as Cain, which is why Susan and
11:25
Speaker 8: I go back and forth on calling him Cain or Josh,
11:28
Speaker 8: depending on who we're talking to. Just remember that whenever
11:33
Speaker 8: you hear someone talking about Josh or Cain, they're talking
11:36
Speaker 8: about the same person.
11:39
Speaker 1: So how long had Josh and Bryan and friends.
11:44
Speaker 4: As their whole life?
11:46
Speaker 2: Basically?
11:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, the whole la.
11:51
Speaker 1: The Bowling family lived in a double wide off of
11:54
Speaker 1: Creighton Road, just behind an old cemetery connected to Pleasant
11:57
Speaker 1: Hope Church. Josh Kin lived with his family on the
12:02
Speaker 1: other side of the cemetery, just a short walk away
12:04
Speaker 1: from where Brian lived. The boys were always going back
12:07
Speaker 1: and forth between each other's houses, and at times Josh
12:11
Speaker 1: would even live with the Bowlings. Brian's aunt Melody recalls
12:14
Speaker 1: how close Josh had been with Brian's entire family.
12:17
Speaker 7: You know, his parents, I think would kick him out
12:19
Speaker 7: when he'd get in a little bit of trouble and
12:21
Speaker 7: he'd stay at my sister's house, and I mean he
12:23
Speaker 7: stayed there weeks only in so they loved him.
12:28
Speaker 9: Yeah.
12:42
Speaker 8: We asked Brian's sister Amanda and her husband Kenneth to
12:46
Speaker 8: walk us through what happened that day, on October eighteenth,
12:49
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety six. They both remember Brian getting back home
12:53
Speaker 8: around eight or nine pm that night after spending the
12:56
Speaker 8: day doing odd jobs with family friends Wayne and Charlie Childers.
13:01
Speaker 6: Wayne and Charlie their family. They cut all the cemeteries
13:04
Speaker 6: around this area. They lived across the street from the
13:07
Speaker 6: store Silver Creep Mean Mark and my Nana and Pap
13:11
Speaker 6: Paul lived beside the store. So they've known us our
13:15
Speaker 6: whole entire lit.
13:17
Speaker 1: So he's out cutting grass somewhere around here and with
13:19
Speaker 1: the shoulders and then all three of them come back
13:21
Speaker 1: to your place.
13:22
Speaker 6: Yes, all three of them come in and sat down.
13:25
Speaker 6: We was watching Harry and the Hendersons'll never forget that
13:29
Speaker 6: on TV. The telephone rung and it was this little
13:34
Speaker 6: girl named Caprice, which was supposed to be in his
13:38
Speaker 6: girlfriend at the time, called him, got him on the phone.
13:44
Speaker 6: He went to his bedroom.
13:46
Speaker 8: So that night at the Bulling residence there were seven people.
13:52
Speaker 8: There was Rocky and Deborah Bulling, that's Brain's mom and dad,
13:57
Speaker 8: his sister Amanda and her then boyfriend now Kenneth, and
14:02
Speaker 8: Wayne and Charlie Childers, the family friends of the Bullings
14:05
Speaker 8: whom Brian had been working with that day.
14:08
Speaker 4: They were all in the living room watching.
14:10
Speaker 8: TV, except for Brian, who had grabbed the cordless phone
14:14
Speaker 8: and had gone back to his bedroom to talk to
14:16
Speaker 8: his girlfriend, fifteen year.
14:17
Speaker 4: Old Caprice Hyatt.
14:19
Speaker 8: It was a little later on that night, around nine
14:21
Speaker 8: point thirty, when Josh slash Kin showed up at the
14:25
Speaker 8: Bowling's house and he did something that Amanda and Kenneth
14:28
Speaker 8: found to be very strange.
14:31
Speaker 4: He knocked on the front door.
14:34
Speaker 6: We've lived here for ever ten years, you know, they
14:38
Speaker 6: were best friends forever. He's never once knocked on our door.
14:43
Speaker 6: He knocked on our door that night, and he never
14:47
Speaker 6: knocked on the door. He knocked on the door and
14:49
Speaker 6: Mama said, come on in and sign you know. So
14:53
Speaker 6: he said, is Brian here? Brian in his room? Mama
14:57
Speaker 6: said yeah. So he walked on around through the kitchen,
15:01
Speaker 6: through the dining room, went to Brian's room. I looked
15:04
Speaker 6: at my husband, my boy friend husband. I say husband
15:07
Speaker 6: because he's my husband now.
15:09
Speaker 2: Josh never not, Josh knew he was welcome her. He
15:13
Speaker 2: never not. He not that night in nash where's Brian,
15:17
Speaker 2: you know? And he never never done any of that.
15:21
Speaker 1: There was a lot about Josh's behavior that night that,
15:24
Speaker 1: at least in hindsight, Kenneth and Amanda had found to
15:27
Speaker 1: be suspicious.
15:28
Speaker 6: Something just wasn't right. We knewing, you know, because he
15:32
Speaker 6: usually just comes in, oh, just because he was tall,
15:36
Speaker 6: you know, just being his goofy salf you know, talking
15:40
Speaker 6: to Mama, messing with Daddy, messing with us, and there's
15:44
Speaker 6: nothing like that, or not come in head down Brian
15:49
Speaker 6: in his room.
15:50
Speaker 1: Josh headed back to Brian's bedroom, and Brian's family assumed
15:53
Speaker 1: that the two of them were just hanging out and
15:55
Speaker 1: listening to music like usual.
15:57
Speaker 6: He had a radio playing and was playing Bone Thugs
16:01
Speaker 6: in Harmony. That's what we all listened to him back
16:05
Speaker 6: name It's Ninie.
16:07
Speaker 1: The song playing in Brian's bedroom that night was Bone
16:09
Speaker 1: Thugs and Harmonies nineteen ninety six hit single The Crossroads.
16:13
Speaker 1: Brian's aunt and uncle recall Brian's mother never bowling telling
16:17
Speaker 1: them about it.
16:17
Speaker 12: That's what she had told me at the time, you know,
16:21
Speaker 12: when Josh came in that as soon as he went
16:24
Speaker 12: to the better, every turned Bone Slug in Harmony on.
16:27
Speaker 7: And this song was kind of Brian's song, and all
16:31
Speaker 7: of them just kind of I guess that was their
16:34
Speaker 7: little anthem thing.
16:35
Speaker 9: I don't know.
16:37
Speaker 7: I even had to dig up the words to the
16:38
Speaker 7: song for the investigators.
16:44
Speaker 1: A few minutes after Josh arrived, a loud noise reverberated
16:48
Speaker 1: through the trailer. It was loud enough to be heard
16:51
Speaker 1: over the sound of the Crossroads playing through Brian's speakers, and.
16:55
Speaker 6: We heard a real loud though I don't think it
16:59
Speaker 6: was the gunshot that we heard. I think what we
17:02
Speaker 6: heard was him and hitting the floor, because it was
17:05
Speaker 6: just a loud thud. So I opened up the door
17:10
Speaker 6: and me and kenn Up were the first ones in
17:12
Speaker 6: the room, and Brian was laying in the floor, and
17:17
Speaker 6: I reached down and I said, Brian up, you know,
17:21
Speaker 6: because I thought he was playing. And then I reached
17:24
Speaker 6: down and I seen the blood and everything, and then
17:27
Speaker 6: I knew. And then Kenneth he just pushed me out
17:30
Speaker 6: the way, basically what he did, and grabbed a towel.
17:36
Speaker 1: Brian's family quickly realized that Brian had been shot in
17:39
Speaker 1: the head.
17:40
Speaker 6: The gun was between Brian's feet. Josh was backed up
17:46
Speaker 6: in the corner. He was laying on his right side
17:52
Speaker 6: like he had He was sitting on his bed like
17:54
Speaker 6: he had just fell off his bed. He had the
17:57
Speaker 6: phone in his right hand. Mama had to break his
18:00
Speaker 6: fingers to get the phone to call on one one.
18:04
Speaker 6: Josh Kepp trying to get out. He first said why
18:09
Speaker 6: he was playing Russian Roulette and the gun just went out,
18:13
Speaker 6: and then he said he asked the only shall I sell?
18:16
Speaker 6: And then he said I didn't mean to kill him,
18:19
Speaker 6: and he just kept saying I didn't mean to kill him.
18:21
Speaker 6: I didn't mean to kill him.
18:23
Speaker 4: You said, you consoled Josh.
18:24
Speaker 6: I did, and he said it was an accident, and
18:27
Speaker 6: I hugged him. I said it's okay, Josh, we'll figure
18:30
Speaker 6: this out.
18:31
Speaker 9: And I hugged him and he believed those.
18:33
Speaker 6: And I believe yeah, yeah, I mean, never thought anything
18:39
Speaker 6: like that could ever happen to us.
18:41
Speaker 8: Kenneth and Amanda say that twenty five years later, their
18:45
Speaker 8: memories are sometimes fuzzy. Some of it they still remember
18:48
Speaker 8: clear as day, They can still see it like it
18:51
Speaker 8: was yesterday, but other parts of that night they struggled
18:54
Speaker 8: to recall. They both wish there were better records from
18:57
Speaker 8: the night of the shooting.
19:00
Speaker 11: So long.
19:00
Speaker 2: I wish, you know, I wish the publish for the
19:04
Speaker 2: guy that interview of us later that week. We said,
19:10
Speaker 2: because if we could have, if we could have been interviewed,
19:13
Speaker 2: then you could have got all your answers, you know,
19:17
Speaker 2: But now twenty five years didn't.
19:19
Speaker 5: Buy and wait house should have been to this point,
19:23
Speaker 5: station are taken in the rooms, interviewed by ourselves to
19:27
Speaker 5: get all of our stories, you.
19:30
Speaker 4: Know, and go from there.
19:32
Speaker 2: There's no telling what I blocked out from then kill
19:36
Speaker 2: now that I could have told them that night.
19:38
Speaker 1: No one's memory that it's gonna be accurate now compared,
19:41
Speaker 1: It's just not ever gonna happen, as far as we
19:44
Speaker 1: can tell. The very first time that Amanda and Kenneth
19:48
Speaker 1: ever gave a statement in this case wasn't until fourteen
19:51
Speaker 1: months after the shooting. During their testimony at Josh Lee's
19:54
Speaker 1: trial in nineteen ninety eight, Amanda suggested that we tried
19:58
Speaker 1: speaking to her uncle, Michael, her mom's She said he
20:01
Speaker 1: had a good memory and thought there might be a
20:03
Speaker 1: lot that he'd be able to remember.
20:05
Speaker 4: Michael's name was new to us.
20:07
Speaker 8: It doesn't appear in the case file, and before talking
20:10
Speaker 8: to Amanda, Susan and I had no reason to think
20:13
Speaker 8: that he might be someone that had any relevant information
20:16
Speaker 8: about what happened that night.
20:18
Speaker 12: I was actually at home. It was a Friday night,
20:21
Speaker 12: to best my knowledge. Around eight thirty five pm, I
20:24
Speaker 12: got a call. It was my mother screaming, Brian shot hisself.
20:29
Speaker 12: Go down there, Brian shot hisself, go down there. And
20:32
Speaker 12: I was saying how bad. She was like, just go
20:34
Speaker 12: down there. We lived like two houses away, So I
20:36
Speaker 12: just took off down there. I was the first one there,
20:39
Speaker 12: before any paramedics or anything. I headed toward the door. Actually,
20:45
Speaker 12: Josh as we called him instead of Cane met me
20:49
Speaker 12: at the door, saying, I didn't mean to kill him, Michael,
20:52
Speaker 12: I didn't mean to kill him, and that kind of
20:54
Speaker 12: light dumbfounded me because I was thinking he probably shot
20:58
Speaker 12: hisself in the foot or hand or something like that.
21:01
Speaker 12: So I just kind of pushed around and went straight
21:03
Speaker 12: to the bed room and Josh was kind of behind me.
21:07
Speaker 12: Wayne and Charlie Childers were in the house. They were
21:10
Speaker 12: kind of standing back in the dining room area, uh,
21:13
Speaker 12: just watching what was going on. While I was in there.
21:16
Speaker 12: The Devera was trying to do CPR.
21:18
Speaker 1: Okay, so they're trying to stop the bleeding and yeah.
21:21
Speaker 12: She had his head laying on a pillow, trying to
21:23
Speaker 12: you know, trying to stop the bleeding.
21:25
Speaker 1: She had a pillow.
21:27
Speaker 12: Yes, Josh did come to the door. He told me
21:31
Speaker 12: they need the gun. The gun was laying at the
21:34
Speaker 12: foot of Brian at that time. And I turned around, like,
21:38
Speaker 12: who's they? Who is they? Who is they? Because EMTs
21:41
Speaker 12: wasn't even there yet or policemen.
21:43
Speaker 9: Uh.
21:44
Speaker 12: He said, they will need the good and they need
21:45
Speaker 12: to go and give me the good. And I'm like, no,
21:47
Speaker 12: you're not getting the gun.
21:48
Speaker 8: Like several other witnesses who were there at the trailer
21:51
Speaker 8: that night, Brian's uncle Michael, recalls hearing Josh make a
21:54
Speaker 8: series of confusing statements that at least later on after
21:58
Speaker 8: Josh's arrest, they find to be potentially incriminating.
22:02
Speaker 1: So at this time, you're not sure what's happening. You're
22:06
Speaker 1: suspicious of Josh, but you're not really right.
22:09
Speaker 12: I'm not really for sure because you know, like I said,
22:12
Speaker 12: he said, you know, he was telling the police air
22:14
Speaker 12: towards that it was a Russian roulette and that he
22:18
Speaker 12: felt like he was responsible for it because it was
22:20
Speaker 12: his game.
22:21
Speaker 1: So he tells them right away it was my goune
22:23
Speaker 1: I brought it, well.
22:24
Speaker 12: Not his gun, but yes, yeah, that he brought the game.
22:32
Speaker 8: There are no records of any witness interviews the police
22:35
Speaker 8: conducted at the trailer that night, assuming that they conducted
22:39
Speaker 8: any at all, but later on at the trial, witnesses
22:43
Speaker 8: were testify to hearing Josh say things like I didn't
22:46
Speaker 8: mean to kill him, and I didn't mean for my
22:48
Speaker 8: best friend to die, as well as things like he
22:52
Speaker 8: shot himself and we were playing Russian roulette. Josh does
22:56
Speaker 8: admit right away that he brought the gun, he had
22:59
Speaker 8: take it from his dad's safe, but any suspicions about
23:03
Speaker 8: what Josh may have meant by the statements he made
23:06
Speaker 8: that night would come later. In the moment, everyone's concern
23:10
Speaker 8: was focused on getting Brian help. When the paramedics arrived,
23:15
Speaker 8: Brian was still breathing and he was transported to the
23:18
Speaker 8: hospital with his family following close behind.
23:23
Speaker 6: While I could think about with oh my god, I'm like, oh,
23:26
Speaker 6: we gotta get him, we gotta get him out of here,
23:28
Speaker 6: and you know, gotta get him to the hospital. You know,
23:31
Speaker 6: please don't let him die, because I was thinking that
23:33
Speaker 6: he was gonna be okay.
23:35
Speaker 1: Once at the hospital. A cat scan revealed just how
23:38
Speaker 1: severe Brian's injury had been, and the scans the woundtrack
23:42
Speaker 1: shows up as a vivid white slash through his head,
23:44
Speaker 1: starting just above his right temple and traveling all the
23:47
Speaker 1: way through his brain to exit on the other side,
23:50
Speaker 1: just above his left ear.
23:52
Speaker 6: All I remember is when I walked in that hospital room.
23:56
Speaker 6: That wasn't my brother lay in there, Maddie's head all round,
24:01
Speaker 6: his eyes were black nice well, you know, and I
24:06
Speaker 6: just I couldn't even go up to me. All I
24:10
Speaker 6: could do is just stand Addy's fate and Rebby's fate.
24:14
Speaker 6: I mean, it's honing me. It hone in me for years,
24:20
Speaker 6: years and years.
24:24
Speaker 8: On Saturday, October nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, Brian Bowling was
24:29
Speaker 8: pronounced dead.
24:31
Speaker 4: The next day, A story about.
24:32
Speaker 8: The shooting runs in the Rome News Tribune under the
24:35
Speaker 8: headline Russian roulette proves fatal for high school student. The
24:40
Speaker 8: Floyd County Police Department is quoted in the article as
24:43
Speaker 8: stating that they consider the shooting to be accidental and
24:47
Speaker 8: that no charges will be filed, But Brian's aunt, Melody,
24:51
Speaker 8: thinks investigators are too quick to call it a closed case.
24:55
Speaker 1: So at the very beginning, you get the sense that
24:57
Speaker 1: they're just they.
24:58
Speaker 7: They yeah, they just Josh's word for it, and you know,
25:01
Speaker 7: poor kid played Russian Roulette and you lost.
25:05
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, like, what did they tell they
25:07
Speaker 1: tell you why they thought I was Russian Roulette? That
25:09
Speaker 1: just because that's what Josh laid.
25:11
Speaker 8: At first, the police don't think there's anything more to investigate,
25:15
Speaker 8: but in the days after Brian's death, Brian's family has
25:18
Speaker 8: more time to think back on what happened, and to them,
25:22
Speaker 8: things don't quite add up. Brain's sister, Amanda says she
25:26
Speaker 8: never believed the Russian Roulette story.
25:28
Speaker 1: So Josh says that they were playing Russian Roulette, and
25:31
Speaker 1: you believe him? You don't, Okay, so you're not because.
25:34
Speaker 6: I knew my brother, so I would never put no
25:37
Speaker 6: gun to his head and pull the trigger.
25:39
Speaker 1: So he says he played Russian Roulette.
25:42
Speaker 6: I think, no, that's not true.
25:43
Speaker 1: So what do you think. Why do you think Josh
25:44
Speaker 1: would tell you that.
25:45
Speaker 6: I don't know, because you know, he said a lot
25:47
Speaker 6: of things at night, but I knew something just wasn't
25:51
Speaker 6: right because we was like Russian Roulette and was like, no, you.
25:56
Speaker 1: Know, Brian's family doubted the Russian Roulette story because because
26:00
Speaker 1: they did not believe that Brian would ever have done
26:02
Speaker 1: something so reckless. But there's another reason too that Kenneth
26:05
Speaker 1: and Amanda say the Russian Roulet story didn't make sense
26:08
Speaker 1: to them.
26:09
Speaker 6: Josh wasn't in there long enough, did they play?
26:13
Speaker 2: It went from him walking in the door to going
26:17
Speaker 2: stright to the room, to us getting up and going
26:21
Speaker 2: in there. It wasn't It wasn't even five minutes, so
26:26
Speaker 2: you know, I mean where you go there, you're walking.
26:30
Speaker 8: You know, even though one way or another, it was
26:34
Speaker 8: because Josh brought the gun to the trailer that night
26:37
Speaker 8: that Brian ended up dead. Brian's family isn't blaming Josh
26:41
Speaker 8: for what happened. From all appearances, Josh is deeply grieving
26:44
Speaker 8: his friend's death. Brian's aunt Melody remembers that Josh even
26:49
Speaker 8: joined Brian's family in helping to plan for his funeral.
26:52
Speaker 7: You know, was next day, Oh you know he's there
26:55
Speaker 7: at the house, and.
26:57
Speaker 1: Josh is at the house.
26:58
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, he was at our at my mom's. Everybody
27:01
Speaker 7: was gathering because Dever's house was, yeah, a wreck, and
27:07
Speaker 7: he was there. No, he wanted to play his guitar
27:08
Speaker 7: and singing at the funeral and all this stuff and
27:11
Speaker 7: debor was just, you know, so glad.
27:17
Speaker 8: Because the Floyd County Police Department believes that Brian's death
27:21
Speaker 8: is an accident, their initial investigation was routine at best.
27:26
Speaker 8: On the night of the shooting, the police take Josh
27:28
Speaker 8: from the Bowlings trailer to the Floyd County Police Department. There,
27:33
Speaker 8: they swab his hands to test for the presence of
27:35
Speaker 8: gunshot residue and question him about what happened to Brian.
27:40
Speaker 8: He tells them Brian was playing Russian.
27:42
Speaker 4: Roulette when he died.
27:44
Speaker 8: We don't know what exactly Josh tells them about whose
27:47
Speaker 8: idea was to play Russian Roulette. This interview was not recorded,
27:52
Speaker 8: and there's no formal report or any record made to
27:55
Speaker 8: document it. The only reason we know this interview took
27:58
Speaker 8: place is because both Josh and the investigating officer say
28:02
Speaker 8: it did. But whatever it is, he tells them, the
28:06
Speaker 8: police accepted.
28:08
Speaker 1: Brian's aunt Melody is unimpressed by the way the Floyd
28:11
Speaker 1: County Police Department is handling the case. She makes sure
28:14
Speaker 1: that the two investigators assigned to it take her concerns seriously.
28:18
Speaker 1: So your first impression of the investigator. Do you remember
28:20
Speaker 1: who it was?
28:21
Speaker 7: By a chance, David Stewart and Dallas Bad they were
28:24
Speaker 7: we all became good friends.
28:26
Speaker 1: They worked hard after they realized.
28:29
Speaker 7: It was not going to be open and shut.
28:31
Speaker 1: But then after they met me.
28:35
Speaker 7: They met me and I was just like, that's not
28:38
Speaker 7: good enough, you know, I was asking them questions, and
28:41
Speaker 7: so they knew, you know, we got to go back
28:45
Speaker 7: and do a little more.
28:46
Speaker 4: They knew you were thinking something different.
28:48
Speaker 7: David, I know, is I know he's alive.
28:52
Speaker 1: We stopped by. Yeah, we talked to David, but Dallas
28:58
Speaker 1: obviously we can't right he passed away. I think Mark
29:02
Speaker 1: Jack and Yeah.
29:03
Speaker 7: But I mean they worked hard on it after, you know,
29:06
Speaker 7: they realized that this was not your typical you know,
29:11
Speaker 7: Russian or it wasn't an open and shutcase.
29:14
Speaker 1: Aunt Melody says that there was a crucial detail about
29:17
Speaker 1: the crime scene that investigators Dallas Battle and David Stewart
29:20
Speaker 1: had overlooked. Although the police don't document any witness interviews
29:24
Speaker 1: in the first forty eight hours after the shooting, we
29:26
Speaker 1: know there was at least one member of Brian's family
29:28
Speaker 1: who the police talked to at the hospital. Shortly after
29:30
Speaker 1: the shooting. That's Brian's mother, Deborah Bowling. According to Melody,
29:35
Speaker 1: when the police speak to her sister, she points out
29:38
Speaker 1: a detail that complicates what the police have been treating
29:41
Speaker 1: as an open and shutcase.
29:43
Speaker 7: Brian was on the phone with his girlfriend. My sister
29:47
Speaker 7: pretty much broke his fingers to get the phone out
29:50
Speaker 7: of his hand to call on one one. So if
29:53
Speaker 7: you got the phone in your hand, why would you
29:55
Speaker 7: play Russian roulette and do this and come out here?
29:59
Speaker 8: When we spoke to me, she demonstrated the problem to us,
30:02
Speaker 8: pointing out where Brian had been shot in the right
30:05
Speaker 8: side of his head. According to his mother, Debor Bowling,
30:09
Speaker 8: when she had found him lying on the floor of
30:11
Speaker 8: his bedroom, he'd been gripping the cordless telephone in his
30:15
Speaker 8: right hand. And if Brian had been clutching the phone
30:18
Speaker 8: in his right hand when he was shot, there's no
30:20
Speaker 8: possible way he could have fired the revolver into the
30:23
Speaker 8: right side of his head too.
30:25
Speaker 7: And the detectives they were just like, oh, it's Russian Roland,
30:28
Speaker 7: That's what they said. I'm like, no, let's go back
30:31
Speaker 7: to the drawing board. So they talked to Josh again.
30:34
Speaker 8: At trial, Sergeant Dallas Battle testified that two days after
30:39
Speaker 8: the shooting, he made a trip to the funeral home
30:41
Speaker 8: with the county coroner to inspect Brian's body, and something
30:44
Speaker 8: about what he saw there at the funeral home, what
30:48
Speaker 8: exactly it is, he doesn't say, caused him to change
30:52
Speaker 8: his mind about how Brian was killed. He no longer
30:55
Speaker 8: believes that the gunshot had been self inflicted.
30:58
Speaker 1: That's what he makes the decision to bring Kane Joshua's
31:01
Speaker 1: story in for a second interview. It's during this second
31:04
Speaker 1: interview that Josh says something that changes the course of
31:07
Speaker 1: the entire investigation. During Josh's second interview, Sergeant Dallas Battle
31:15
Speaker 1: tells him that he knows Josh is the one who
31:17
Speaker 1: shot Brian. You didn't shoot Brian a purpose, Sergeant Battle
31:21
Speaker 1: assures him. It was an accident, wasn't it. Nobody said
31:25
Speaker 1: you'd done anything on purpose, And at first, Josh continues
31:28
Speaker 1: to insist that Brian had shot himself, that Brian had
31:32
Speaker 1: been the one to hold the revolver to his head
31:34
Speaker 1: and fire it, but eventually Josh changes his story. Josh
31:38
Speaker 1: still insists that Brian had been playing Russian Roulette, but
31:42
Speaker 1: at Sergeant Battle's urging. He acknowledges that he'd gotten the
31:45
Speaker 1: revolver back from Brian, it went off and accidentally hit him.
31:49
Speaker 1: Josh says, I saw Brian hit the floor and the
31:52
Speaker 1: gun fell out of my hand. Josh was charged with
31:55
Speaker 1: involuntary manslaughter and booked into the county jail. Brian's uncle,
32:02
Speaker 1: Michael remembers when Brian's mother received the news that Josh
32:06
Speaker 1: had been arrested for killing her son.
32:08
Speaker 12: She was screaming and kind of breaking down, you know. So,
32:12
Speaker 12: like I said, she hit called the funeral home and
32:14
Speaker 12: told him to hold off on everything, and she didn't
32:19
Speaker 12: want his name in the papers of being a Paul
32:21
Speaker 12: Baird or anything like that, because she was even gonna
32:23
Speaker 12: let Josh sing at Brian's funeral.
32:27
Speaker 1: So that night there'd be a Paul Bird so forth.
32:30
Speaker 12: Because I remember having a call the funeral home hold
32:33
Speaker 12: all my arrangements, you know.
32:34
Speaker 4: So at that.
32:35
Speaker 8: Time, when they tell her that Josh has said he
32:42
Speaker 8: did it, but are they saying he did he said
32:45
Speaker 8: it was an accident.
32:46
Speaker 12: At that point, they just said that they would charge
32:49
Speaker 12: Josh and that the evidence showed that he did it.
32:54
Speaker 12: I don't know if they told her exactly that he
32:57
Speaker 12: admitted it, and.
32:58
Speaker 4: Were you surprised when you heard that?
33:00
Speaker 12: We're waitless arived?
33:02
Speaker 1: Was there any at that point? Did any other names
33:04
Speaker 1: come up? Or is it just Josh?
33:06
Speaker 12: At that time it was just Josh.
33:08
Speaker 8: The day after his arrest for involuntary manslaughter, Josh slash
33:12
Speaker 8: Kane is released on bond. He remains free for the
33:16
Speaker 8: next seven months. Then seven months later, in May of
33:20
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety seven, he is arrested again. This time, the
33:25
Speaker 8: charges are upgraded to first degree murder and conspiracy to
33:29
Speaker 8: commit murder, and Josh is not the only one charged
33:33
Speaker 8: for Brian's death. Another teenager is arrested as well, seventeen
33:39
Speaker 8: year old Darryl Lee Clark.
33:43
Speaker 3: I good brand will brand Hei did what happened to him?
33:48
Speaker 3: It don't we want to heard about it in a game?
33:51
Speaker 3: We're a lot motion. We were, but I had a
33:53
Speaker 3: good job.
33:54
Speaker 8: On the afternoon of May twenty third, nineteen ninety seven,
33:57
Speaker 8: more than seven months after Brian's death, Lee had been
34:01
Speaker 8: preparing to go to the lake with some friends. Just
34:04
Speaker 8: before heading out, though, he stopped by his mom's house.
34:07
Speaker 3: And that's why my mama comes downtairs made as the
34:09
Speaker 3: police had been by, there would have wart from my
34:11
Speaker 3: wrist for conspirace to come at murder, and murder ain't
34:14
Speaker 3: no mistake. She should have went by. He did his
34:16
Speaker 3: place too.
34:17
Speaker 8: Lee's parents drove him down to the Floyd County Police
34:19
Speaker 8: Department to try and figure out what was going on.
34:22
Speaker 3: Always when I even got down, tould the county jail
34:24
Speaker 3: down there and went in there to kail the lady.
34:26
Speaker 3: I told her, I said, look, there's clearly been some
34:29
Speaker 3: kind of mistake, mate, there's a warning issue for my
34:32
Speaker 3: rent for conspirace to comit murder. I said, I know,
34:35
Speaker 3: I haven't did anything like this. I said, I don't
34:37
Speaker 3: even know anybody to say it.
34:39
Speaker 8: By the time of Warren was issued for his arrest,
34:42
Speaker 8: Brian's death was not even on Lee's mind. It did
34:45
Speaker 8: not occur to him that he was being accused of
34:47
Speaker 8: murdering Brian. In fact, he says he didn't think he
34:51
Speaker 8: was really being charged with murder at all. He assumed
34:54
Speaker 8: the whole thing must have been some kind of huge mistake.
34:59
Speaker 3: I said, really like to get this straightened up. Well,
35:02
Speaker 3: it didn't nothing to get straightened up. I got drug
35:05
Speaker 3: to the bat, got handcuffed, that was spiders come down
35:08
Speaker 3: there trying to get me to talk to him, and
35:10
Speaker 3: then like, I know what was going on? And I
35:12
Speaker 3: told him, I said, look, I said, I don't know
35:13
Speaker 3: why y'all got me down here. I said, you're sitting
35:15
Speaker 3: there talking to me like I ought to batically know
35:17
Speaker 3: what's going on. I said, why don't you tell me
35:19
Speaker 3: what's going on? Then I know, because I ain't got
35:21
Speaker 3: a clue what you're talking about. Why am I down here?
35:24
Speaker 3: Why are these charges on me? And that's when he
35:26
Speaker 3: hit me with it, talking about, well, we know that
35:29
Speaker 3: you and Kane story, We know y'all aspired, we know
35:32
Speaker 3: y'all had something to do with Brian Bowley's dead and
35:35
Speaker 3: all this. And I told myself, oh, hold up, man,
35:38
Speaker 3: I said, I can't even believe you playing this card
35:40
Speaker 3: right here. I said, look, I said, I didn't have
35:44
Speaker 3: nothing to do with any of that. I wouldn't even
35:46
Speaker 3: there when Brian killed hisself. I said, to my knowledge,
35:49
Speaker 3: that's exactly what happened. Well, everything I've been told, Brian
35:53
Speaker 3: Bowley killed herself that night.
35:59
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen ninety eight, both Kine's story and
36:02
Speaker 1: Lee Clark went on trial for the murder of Brian Bowling.
36:05
Speaker 1: The prosecutor Steve Cox, presented the theory that Brian's death
36:09
Speaker 1: had been a gang related revenge killing. He told the
36:12
Speaker 1: jury that Brian, Kin and Lee had all been members
36:15
Speaker 1: of a gang called the Free Birds. The free Birds,
36:18
Speaker 1: he said, had a very specific code of conduct that
36:20
Speaker 1: gang members were required to obey. One of the gang's
36:23
Speaker 1: rules was that any gang member who spoke to the
36:25
Speaker 1: police had to die, and Brian, the prosecutor said, had
36:29
Speaker 1: broken that rule, which is why his fellow gang members
36:32
Speaker 1: had been required to kill him. Prosecutor Steve Cox told
36:35
Speaker 1: the jury that there'd never been a game of Russian Roulette.
36:38
Speaker 1: All of that was just a cover story that Lee,
36:40
Speaker 1: Clark and Kine's story had come up with in an
36:42
Speaker 1: effort to hide the fact that one of the two boys,
36:45
Speaker 1: either Cain or Lee, had intentionally shot and killed their friend.
36:50
Speaker 1: I was curious did Steve Cox commit to like a theory.
36:52
Speaker 1: Did he say what he thought had happened, like what
36:55
Speaker 1: was the.
36:57
Speaker 7: I don't know if. I don't think Steve ever said
37:00
Speaker 7: one or the other did it right, you know, because
37:03
Speaker 7: only only one of them could do it, So I
37:08
Speaker 7: don't think he was trying to settle on getting one
37:11
Speaker 7: prosecuted and one not or one found guilty and onenot.
37:16
Speaker 1: But he didn't like say that which one definitely did
37:18
Speaker 1: the shooting? I don't think so.
37:20
Speaker 3: No.
37:20
Speaker 1: Okay, Brian's family got the verdict they've been hoping for,
37:24
Speaker 1: but there was a lot about the case that was
37:26
Speaker 1: left unanswered. We called Kevin back at the office to
37:29
Speaker 1: tell them what we'd learned.
37:31
Speaker 8: They were both ultimately convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.
37:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, which which means that the jury didn't have to
37:41
Speaker 1: determine if anyone.
37:42
Speaker 4: Of them had pulled the trigger yep.
37:45
Speaker 3: So just that they had planned the murder and seen
37:48
Speaker 3: that it was carried out.
37:49
Speaker 1: Basically, because the investigation never came up with an answer
37:53
Speaker 1: about how exactly Brian had been killed, Brian's family has
37:57
Speaker 1: been left to fill in the gaps with their own theories,
38:00
Speaker 1: which involved Lee being outside Brian's bedroom window the Nike
38:03
Speaker 1: was shot.
38:04
Speaker 7: My thoughts were Lee probably shot him and Josh had
38:08
Speaker 7: to lure him to sit in the bedroom. But I
38:12
Speaker 7: think the shooter was Lee. Brian had a window, and
38:16
Speaker 7: Brian's window it flopped in and out, so I think
38:19
Speaker 7: he would leave home come back through the window. But
38:23
Speaker 7: that night that window was the some kind of wood
38:27
Speaker 7: or something was off. So the kicker is why I
38:34
Speaker 7: believe Lee shot him is Brian had been cutting grass
38:41
Speaker 7: with two of our neighbors, Wayne and Charlie Childers. So
38:46
Speaker 7: they were there still at the house when they brought
38:49
Speaker 7: Brian home, and when Brian was shot, everybody jumped up
38:57
Speaker 7: and ran to the bedroom. It so he sat there
39:04
Speaker 7: and he saw Lee come across the front yard. There's
39:07
Speaker 7: a street light, and he had never seen this kid before,
39:10
Speaker 7: and he picked him up.
39:13
Speaker 8: And you feel like that was like I feel the
39:15
Speaker 8: smoking gun in the trial, Yes, I do.
39:19
Speaker 1: What do you guys think happened that night? What's your
39:21
Speaker 1: your idea the theory?
39:24
Speaker 3: I don't know.
39:24
Speaker 2: I just don't. I I really and truly, BO don't
39:27
Speaker 2: don't think that Brian was baby setting her playing with
39:30
Speaker 2: a gun and knowing, knowing that it could end his life.
39:38
Speaker 2: I just don't believe that. I don't. I don't believe
39:42
Speaker 2: at at all.
39:43
Speaker 6: I think Josh was there. I think Lee was there
39:49
Speaker 6: to make sure that Josh did it, or he could
39:53
Speaker 6: have told him, you know, one of you is gonna die.
39:57
Speaker 4: I don't know. I j I don't know.
40:01
Speaker 6: I feel confused now, you know, But I mean one
40:06
Speaker 6: of them took my brother's life. I do know that
40:09
Speaker 6: because I know my brother didn't do it. I mean,
40:12
Speaker 6: and one is just as guilty as the other because
40:15
Speaker 6: there's both there.
40:16
Speaker 1: What's your understanding of going down?
40:19
Speaker 12: I do feel in my heart that Josh pulled the trigger,
40:22
Speaker 12: Like I said, do you tell him meet me at
40:24
Speaker 12: the door, you know, saying I didn't meet to kill him.
40:26
Speaker 12: I call I didn't mean to kill him. So I
40:29
Speaker 12: feel in my heart, you know that he really was
40:31
Speaker 12: the trigger guy.
40:33
Speaker 3: Uh.
40:33
Speaker 12: I kind of feel that Lee was there too as well.
40:37
Speaker 12: He was probably either halfway in the room or in
40:39
Speaker 12: the room, and that he kind of talked him into
40:45
Speaker 12: it or forced him into it really, you know, by threatening.
40:47
Speaker 2: Him so threatening Josh, by threatening Josh to.
40:52
Speaker 12: Me, Josh wouldn' I've never done it completely on his own,
40:55
Speaker 12: because they were too good of friends.
40:59
Speaker 8: Because if this was a conspiracy case, the jury was
41:02
Speaker 8: able to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee and
41:05
Speaker 8: Kane were both guilty of killing Brian, even if they
41:09
Speaker 8: had no clue which one of them had actually fired
41:12
Speaker 8: the shot. It's this uncertainty about who actually killed Brian,
41:19
Speaker 8: or if Brian really did shoot himself that caught our
41:22
Speaker 8: attention about the case. If the prosecution is right, then
41:26
Speaker 8: Cain's story in Lee Clark orchestrated a complicated murder conspiracy
41:30
Speaker 8: to kill their best friend. As Susan and I start
41:33
Speaker 8: looking into this case, we had a lot of questions
41:36
Speaker 8: about the prosecution's narrative. So the other thing that doesn't
41:40
Speaker 8: make sense about their theory is that it was a
41:43
Speaker 8: big planned murder that Cain would admit to doing it
41:48
Speaker 8: moments later, Like if the plan was that we're going
41:51
Speaker 8: to stick to our story, it's a Russian roulette, he
41:54
Speaker 8: killed himself, why would he start admitting to it.
41:57
Speaker 1: So the idea is that at the conspiracy from Martin,
42:00
Speaker 1: Cain distracts Brian, Lee comes in the window and kills him,
42:05
Speaker 1: and then immediately after Kin is like I killed him.
42:08
Speaker 1: I did one you didn't under this scenario and to
42:13
Speaker 1: why admit to it? And also in her testimony, Brian's
42:17
Speaker 1: mom makes it clear that that's not a confession. That's
42:19
Speaker 1: a at best like an omission of guilt bringing the gun,
42:23
Speaker 1: and he.
42:24
Speaker 8: Has said he feels guilty bringing the gun.
42:29
Speaker 1: From his letter to me. He's like he, you know,
42:31
Speaker 1: described what happened and said, if that's a crime, I'm guilty.
42:35
Speaker 1: But if it's not, I'm not guilty of what they
42:39
Speaker 1: said I did.
42:41
Speaker 8: Brian's aunt, Melody, was not called as a witness in
42:43
Speaker 8: this case, so she was one of the few members
42:46
Speaker 8: of Brian's family that was able to sit in the
42:48
Speaker 8: courtroom and watch the trial, and as she sat through
42:52
Speaker 8: the seven days of testimony, she began to lose confidence
42:56
Speaker 8: in the case that the prosecution had put together.
42:58
Speaker 7: There were just so many wholes in the investigation, you know,
43:02
Speaker 7: but a jury evidently felt like that they should be convicted.
43:10
Speaker 7: And I mean I felt like they did need to
43:13
Speaker 7: be convicted, but I was very surprised.
43:15
Speaker 4: That they were.
43:16
Speaker 1: It wasn't just Brian's family that was surprised by the verdict.
43:20
Speaker 1: Lee Clark had not been expecting it either. Did you
43:22
Speaker 1: think you're gonna be convicted?
43:24
Speaker 8: Me?
43:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, I've never seen this coming in a
43:28
Speaker 3: thousand years. I sit in that courtroom and I swore
43:31
Speaker 3: up down, I was going back and forth to court,
43:35
Speaker 3: and I was telling these guys in jail with me.
43:37
Speaker 3: I said, these people are up there line, I said,
43:39
Speaker 3: they know their lining. They got to know their line.
43:42
Speaker 3: I said, this jury is sitting in there listening to
43:44
Speaker 3: the stuff I'm listening to. If they're opening their eyes
43:47
Speaker 3: and they're listening properly right here and listening to the truth,
43:50
Speaker 3: I'm going home, man, I said.
43:51
Speaker 7: Not.
43:52
Speaker 3: They supposed to be here, man, That's why I was
43:54
Speaker 3: telling me. But it didn't work out like it.
44:00
Speaker 1: Of this past January, both Kine's story and Lee Clark
44:03
Speaker 1: have now been in prison for twenty four years, serving
44:05
Speaker 1: life sentences for a crime. Both of them say they
44:09
Speaker 1: did not commit a crime that they say never even happened.
44:13
Speaker 1: Lee has always maintained his innocence, and for the most part,
44:16
Speaker 1: Kine has two, except for during his second interview with
44:20
Speaker 1: Sergeant Dallas Battle.
44:21
Speaker 13: When he admitted that the gun had been in his
44:24
Speaker 13: hand when it accidentally went off and shot Brian, but
44:29
Speaker 13: Kane recanted that confession immediately after the interview, and at trial,
44:35
Speaker 13: Kane testified in his own defense and gave the same
44:38
Speaker 13: story he'd given the night that this all happened, that
44:41
Speaker 13: Brian had shot himself during a game of Russian Roulette.
44:45
Speaker 3: Kanye said he told him when they got there, did
44:47
Speaker 3: he shot his sales. What he told me.
44:48
Speaker 1: That's what Kine told you, that he shot himself.
44:51
Speaker 3: He said that he shot hisself, is what he said.
44:53
Speaker 3: He told the police.
44:55
Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered if maybe it didn't go down
44:57
Speaker 1: that way?
44:57
Speaker 3: Stopping to three prisons from Kane's story over this, why
45:00
Speaker 3: my incarceration? Three of them? And I told him, but
45:03
Speaker 3: I said, something went down in that house, man, if
45:05
Speaker 3: something went down in his room, man, I said, go
45:07
Speaker 3: ahead and tell me.
45:08
Speaker 6: Man.
45:09
Speaker 3: The least you can do is if you did do something,
45:11
Speaker 3: tell me. And he swears something down to me that
45:14
Speaker 3: that boy killed hisself. And he's never wavered on that
45:18
Speaker 3: with me one time. He's always told me that that
45:21
Speaker 3: boy killed his self.
45:22
Speaker 1: So how did a case that began as an accidental
45:25
Speaker 1: self inflicted shooting end up with two teenagers serving life
45:29
Speaker 1: in prison?
45:30
Speaker 3: I get confused at this stuff, sous. I don't know
45:32
Speaker 3: any of this stuff. I'm just back to with country
45:35
Speaker 3: Boy and stuck here. I'm trying to figure stuff out,
45:37
Speaker 3: and it's hard for me to put it together. I mean,
45:41
Speaker 3: the only thing I know for a fact is I
45:44
Speaker 3: wasn't at that boy's house. And the truth we know,
45:46
Speaker 3: we just go ahead put it out there like it
45:48
Speaker 3: is so truthly, No, and I really don't know what's
45:50
Speaker 3: happened in that house.
45:51
Speaker 1: Lee Clark asked if I'd look into the case to
45:54
Speaker 1: try and find out what had happened here, to find
45:56
Speaker 1: out how Brian had died and what the evidence was
45:59
Speaker 1: against him and his co defendent.
46:01
Speaker 3: I mean, it's ridiculous the stuff you have to go
46:03
Speaker 3: through just to get the real truth out there. That's
46:07
Speaker 3: why I'm bury my soul. Yess why I've been completely
46:09
Speaker 3: honest with you about everything. I'm not hitting anything for me.
46:12
Speaker 3: I don't have anything to hide. I got a pass.
46:14
Speaker 3: I got a real pass. Okay, I'm not a murderer.
46:18
Speaker 3: I didn't kill anybody.
46:20
Speaker 1: If there's one thing that all the people who've been
46:22
Speaker 1: affected by this case agree on, it's this. We still
46:26
Speaker 1: don't know the truth about what happened to Brian Bowling.
46:28
Speaker 1: No one has gotten any real answers about what happened
46:31
Speaker 1: that night twenty five years ago. But maybe, just maybe,
46:35
Speaker 1: with a fresh set of eyes looking at the case,
46:37
Speaker 1: some answers can still be found. Next week on Proof.
46:45
Speaker 2: Thank the Raging. Why they come up with the plan
46:48
Speaker 2: of killing Brian was because of I doubt Brian was talking,
46:53
Speaker 2: but Brian wasn't talk and Brian didn't say a word
46:55
Speaker 2: about nothing, keating.
46:57
Speaker 1: Brian's in a game.
46:58
Speaker 12: I'm sure he probably was.
46:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:00
Speaker 3: I told him straight up as your look came, I said,
47:03
Speaker 3: we done stoles. He did? He say, and now hear this,
47:06
Speaker 3: You've got his bucking gun on you. I said, what
47:08
Speaker 3: you gonna think when he comes home and he sees
47:10
Speaker 3: that gun gone.
47:11
Speaker 2: Too, and me and Brian he had behind some graves
47:15
Speaker 2: and we seen him come up through there and you
47:18
Speaker 2: perfectly see who it is because I mean it's lit
47:21
Speaker 2: up right there, and then Brian hollers out his leg.
47:26
Speaker 7: It's a shame. It's a shame for their families. It's
47:29
Speaker 7: a shame for our family. It's like my sister said,
47:33
Speaker 7: at least you can go see your sons in prison.
47:42
Speaker 8: You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red and
47:44
Speaker 8: Marble Media. We'll be back next Monday for episode two.
47:48
Speaker 8: Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer. Our logo was designed
47:52
Speaker 8: by Drew Hasski and our theme music is by Ramiro Marquez.
47:57
Speaker 8: Audio production is by Michael Alfinum Goldstein and Michael Yulatowski.
48:02
Speaker 8: Our social media manager is Skylar Park. Thank you to
48:06
Speaker 8: our sponsors for making it possible for us to come
48:08
Speaker 8: back week after week.
48:10
Speaker 4: Follow us everywhere with the.
48:11
Speaker 8: Handle at Proofcrimepod and on our website, proofcrimepod dot com.
48:16
Speaker 4: That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening.