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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. David Parrish was in disbelief when he learned that nineteen year old John Bowie's body had been found hanged from a backstop at the local high school's baseball field and the death declared suicide. David had known John and his twin brother since they were boys. He had coached them on the baseball field and welcomed them into his own home for sleepovers with his sons. However, when David learned how John's body was found, he felt compelled
to find the facts behind this incomprehensible tragedy. Soon, David would learn of a brutal incident at a local motel where John and his brother had been severely beaten by police officers. The charges filed against those officers and the months of harassment and intimidation John and his brother endured. Few in the utopian community of Columbia, Maryland believed John would commit such a final act. Like many others, David wondered how a faithful knight of teens boing off steam
could lead to such a tragic end. As law enforcement failed to find answers and seemed intent on preventing the truth from surfacing, David uncovered a system of cover ups that could only lead to one conclusion. John's death was an active murder. The book they were featuring this evening is Losing John, A team's tragic death, a police cover up, a communities fight for justice, with my special guest author
David Parrish. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview David Parrish.
Thank you, Dan for giving me this opportunity to talk about the book.
Thank you so much. As I mentioned, this is one of the more exciting, infuriating, and heart wrenching stories I've ever read, and thank you so much for sharing it with an audience today. Let's talk about your journey, you and your family's journey to Columbia, Maryland and how you were first acquainted with Mickey John and Sandra Buie.
Okay. I grew up in a blue collar family in rural North Carolina, attended University of North Carolina as a day student, took a job worked in Durham for a while. The job took me to Mississippi, lived there a while, and then we decided, my wife and I, we were too far from her family in Ohio and my family
in North Carolina. So I took a job in Washington, d c. And we were particularly drawn to the community of Columbia, Maryland because it was advertised at the time in the newspapers as New America, where people of all races, ethnicity's religions lived on the same streets, went to the same schools, worshiped in the same buildings. There was always going to be a twenty percent open space with animals and bike paths and lakes and such. And we decided
that's where we wanted to raise our children. And I had two sons. As my sons got into school, I began coaching recor league baseball as a parent coach, and that was actually how I met the boys. They were on my teams from the time they were eleven years old until they graduated from high school. They were exceptional athletes and they were both also playing varsity ball, baseball, football. They were the kind of kids that other kids wanted to be liked. They just they had a certain free
will about them. And when they graduated from high school, they got scholarships to play baseball and Mickey Booie got a scholarship to play football in North Dakota State. They went to North Dakota and they just decided it was
too cold for them. They didn't like it, and so they came home and they began attending the local community college and they were in their second year of college when they and a group of friends decided to rent a room at a motel and catch up your overwinter break and find out about, you know, how each other's lives were going. They had some beer, they made too much noise, and the police showed up, and that was kind of when the story began.
Now you had heard from a friend of the Buoys that they had been we were back in Columbia, as you had mentioned, You thought that they had got the scholarships in North Dakota, and you were surprised to hear that they were back in Columbia. So, being a friend of the family, you called the house and you talked to John, and that's when you heard about the story, because at first you said, everything okay, Why did you
leave North Dakota said hey, it was too cold? You said, hey, the problem with the course and he said, no, no, it was just too cold. Everything else okay, And he said, well almost, And then he told you of the story of January fifth, nineteen ninety at the Red Roof in about a mile out of Columbia, Maryland hotel and fourteen teens originally fifteen teens. So tell us who was there besides the twins Mickey and John, And just tell us
how innocent this little get together was. What was the reason for the get together, And just tell us a little bit about what happened. Once there was a noise complaint.
Well, people were going to college in a lot of different places and over went a break. It was an opportunity to get together and catch up on each other's lives. They'd been friends for you know, forever, and so they thought it would be a good idea to get together at a hotel. Some of them drank beer. They wanted a place where they could have a beer not be
hassled by their parents or the police. They were playing in the state tutill about midnight or one o'clock, and naturally they didn't think through that they would be bothering other people. And the desk clerk called in the noise complaint, and first two police officers showed up, and then a swarm of police officers showed up and John basically they explained. The police officers explained that since some of the kids didn't have IDs, that they were going to have to
spend the weekend in jail. Well, John spoke up and said, yeah, right, you can't do that just because we don't have IDs, and it seemed to make the officers angry. He said, let's go outside. One of them so he got up to go out, but one of the other kids snickered, Chun Coe Korean kid, and when he snickered, the other officer said sorry talking to him. So the first officer pushed John back down on the radiator kind of hard, pushed him back up against the wall, and John lifted
his hands up and kind of backed off. They talked to Chung and then the officer picked up grabbed John by the sleeve and said, you know, now, let's go outside. But when he did, he pulled to so hard that John stumbled, and Micky got up and put his hand on the officer's arm and said, John, no, don't go outside with him. The officer said, you know, get your hand off f an arm. Don't you know you can't
touch a police officer. So Micky took his hand off and he said, yeah, but where are you taking him outside where you can hit him and nobody can see. And this kind of surprised the office. He said, nobody's gonna get hit, and then everything just fell apart. The other officer was a gigantic guy, like six foot seven, officer Victor Raemer, and he just from behind Mickey. He put his knight stick around his throat, started choking and picked him up off the ground. But Mike was a
pretty fiery guy. He was strong. He didn't hit the officer, but he had to get some air and he just start it's struggling. They fell through the door out on the sidewalk, and John and Mickey never threw a blow. They're just shouting, what are you guys doing? Are you nuts? Are you crazy? And they just kept getting hit with the billy club with fists. Finally, the large police officer said to Mickey, you're under arrest, and Mickey just went lamp.
He put his hands behind his back, his face down on the sidewalk, and he basically said, you know, tough guys, you know, beating on kids when they can't do anything about it. And every time he'd say something, he'd get hit again. Well, he's lying face down on the sidewalk, his hands cuffed behind him, he's getting hit. Other police officers are showing up, State police are showing up, and things were kind of calming down, but he shouted out again,
you know guys, you know, just picking on kids. And so the big officer Ramer puts his boot on his face and kind of grounded into the sidewalk like he was grinding out a cigarette. Yeah, it just it was just unbelievable.
Meanwhile, what was going on in the hotel room with these terrorized kids that had been told by these police officers, one being Pete Wright, which john recognizes at some point when he's in that room. He'd seen him around, So he'd seen that officer before, Victor Ramer and this Ricky Johnson. What were they doing in the hotel room with the other people. It was Chris, there was some there was still some girls, John's girlfriend, Chonkoh, and a guy named Puffy.
What did the police do in that room at the same time that they had Mickey and John outside.
Well, they're searching around for any evidence they can find that would be for anything, and the kids are sitting over their hands up in the air. They're throwing a lot of the police are throwing a lot of f bombs around, intimidating the kids. They're shouting at Chung Ko just because he was Korean, and they're calling him names like ping pong and chewing chewing and ching ching, just
kind of out of control things they were. They were clearly excited and nervous the police and they're searching around and Raimer looks under the mattress and he found a pipe that one of the young people had brought. It was like a pipe you could have used for smoking marijuana, and one of the kids had brought it to sort of brag, but there was no marijuana smoke. It just he was just showing off. It belonged to somebody he knew.
Now, the police tell the the questioned one of the Jeff Phipp's girlfriend and this is Jeff Phipps is the guy that was twenty one and took off, but the question his girlfriend and then brought Chong back in and said, look at you're under arrest, and she put it on him that it was his pipe and he denies it, but again he was told he was going to be
arrest arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia paraphernalia. Now, meanwhile with Mick and John, Mickey and John, they're taken to the police station and John is talking about getting a police call, a phone call, and Raymer, Victor Ramer's talking about calling their parents. This conversation John and Mickey, what did John say to Victor Raymer and tell us about the phone call and Sandra's reaction.
Well, Sandra had been waiting up most of the night because they John and Mickey always called her to let her know when they were coming home, and they hadn't called, and so she's waiting. They finally get the call. John had said, you know, let me call my girlfriend's dad because and take me home because my mother get all upset. And they said, no, I'm gonna call Raemer said I'll call,
so he called the home and Sandra answered. Well. By then her next door neighbor, Sylvia Phipps, had already told her, already called her and told her that John and Mickey had been arrested and the police officer was telling her that, and she said, well, I know that, and he said, well, I just want you to know they're fine. And John starts screaming. He says, no, we're not fine. We've been beat up. And he said, I guess you can hear Mickey in the background, and Sandra listened, but she couldn't
hear Mickey. And Raemer says, you know he's out of control. Get him in the cell. And then he just told her there's nothing wrong with your kids. They just need a drug treatment program. And he hung up. Before he hung up, he said, Sandra asked, you know, tell me when to come get them. I'll come get them. He said, no, they're big boys, they can come. They can walk home, and you know, it had been a several hours walk
and he hung up. Well, the next day, next morning, one of the friends bring them home and they're all beat up. I mean their faces. Mickey's almost unrecognizable, John's mouth bleeding blood, coming out for his teeth. He's got a black eye. Sandra's asking them what happened Sandra and their mother, and they're saying, it's like they're angry, And it finally comes out that they think that Raymond went back and told them that their mother had said they
could walk home. Well, they sorted that out once he realized that he had put that on her instead of saying that it was something he had said himself. She took photographs and didn't exactly believe them. She was just taken completely off guard. She said, you had did you have guns? I mean, how can you guys look so beat up like that and make you said now, we didn't have guns. They just beat a sigma crazy And finally the dust settled, and she wasn't completely convinced that
everything had happened like they said. She just thought it was it was just outrageous. But the dust did finally settle and she was They were appointed then that she was listening to them, and they talked it through.
Now there's a reverend right now, how does john learn about Reverend right and how does reverend Reverend Doctor Wright become involved in this case?
Johnny Mickey wanted to press charges. And there was an article in the newspaper about Reverend Wright being the head of the NAACP, and a very complimentary art article about things he had accomplished in the community, and so John contacted him. He sent he took a letter to the church that Reverend Wright ran to ask him to help him.
He went back the next day and the letter was still in the door of the church, so he took it across the street, put a stamp on the letter, put it in the person's mailbox, and they got mailed to Reverend Right and Reverend Wright got in touch with him, said it didn't matter that John and Mick were white, that NAACP was willing to represent anybody or help anybody who had been through that kind of thing. And so he explained to them how to press charges, and they
pressed charges against the police. They pressed They made complaints at the police department, which was going to lead to a internal affairs review, and they pressed charges at the courthouse that would lead to criminal charges for assault against the officers. And in the meantime, the officers charged him with all kinds of things from resisting arrest, I don't know, you name it whatever. They could think of. They actually charged them with possession of drug paraphernalia. No, they accused
him of that, but it was chunk covid. They got charged with the possession of drug parafernilia just because his chunk cald it. He wasn't afraid of him, and they didn't like that.
Right now, he with these charges there. They were filed against Pete Wright, Victor Ramer, and Ricky Johnson. And then early February, the head of an internal affairs division, Sergeant Graham, interviewed John and Mickey and most of the other kids. What did John and Mickey think about that interview with Sergeant Graham? And also what did Reverend Wright suggest to do after that? Who to contact after that?
And what do they do after the interview? John and Mickey weren't satisfied. They said it went okay, but he kept trying to make it sound like more it happened that they had been more responsible than they had and that they had been some sort of ring leaders in the group, and they felt like it was being swayed. I'm not quite sure what you're asking about, Reverend right.
Well, Reverend Wright suggests that they contact the FBI, and because of the agency.
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Plus investigated claims against police officers, So Sandra went with John and Mickey and the February and the FBI interviewed each one of them for an hour, right, correct, and now whether that go ahead?
They came back and told them that they didn't see enough information to charge officers with anything. And the boys were rather disgusted about that. Almost lost it because she they just didn't seem to have taken it seriously, and she just tried it was trying to keep her cool so that she didn't lose any opportunity to have them take it seriously. And they asked her another They said to Mickey, you know, you've got to learn to treat
police officers with respect. And Mickey, being Mickey, you know, he said, oh, forget it. And Sanders said, a bunch of guys give them a lie detector test. And one of the FBI agents said, well, people who are habitual liars know how to take a light detector test. Well, that really ticked Sander off, but she said, you know, what do you think the odds are that they are fourteen liars in the same motel room. Well, they just left and that was the end of that. The FBI didn't do anything about it.
Right now. Things progressed the early spring. Chang Ko as has his drug paraphernalia charge that trial, and during that he to offset that he went for a drug test as you write, and it was come back negative. Dress trying to help himself from court. But during that this officer Raymer, he claims, called him at home asking about those test results. When he told Reverend Right about that, Reverend Wright said he thought that was interference and an
outright illegal act. He also said that Raymer had called and said he could arrange a meeting with the state's attorney and he met with so tell us about this chang Ko and this this trial that he has and what happens at that trial remarkable.
Well, he was Chung was convinced that they were giving him a heart because he just was not afraid of them, and he went to the trial. He said, what did happened? That the officer had called him at home and said he could once the officer found out he had a negative blood test, said well, he could put him in touch with the county prosecutor and maybe they could get
the charges dropped. And when they were in the trial, Chung told this and the judge said, well, the police officer wouldn't do that, and he just blew it off. And when Chung said that the police officer had stuck the night stick in his mouth at the hotel room, he said to the other people in the room laughed. He said, you know, I just that makes me angry. He said, my family didn't come to America to be treated like that.
At the trial, the results of the pipe in terms of the testing. Oddly enough, the prosecution is not ready to proceed. They said, well they won't have the test back, so the case is put on this very I've never heard of this. The case was put on a stet docket, which sets aside the case and it would be dismissed if he stayed out of trouble for a year. So I thought, that's incredible. That's the equivalent of being sentenced without being convicted exactly.
It's just a convenient way of getting things off the books without making any meaningful decision.
Now there's another party that happens, and this Chong his sister goes out of town. So she says, yeah, you can use the apartment. And so he decides to have a few friends over, or quite a few friends over. What happens about ten pm at this again is low key party. What happens who's at the door?
Well, the young people told me is time is I got to know them better. That it was kind of common for police to show up at parties and break them up. And these two police officers, one of them was Victor Raemer and another was someone they didn't know, showed up at the door and asked if there was a party coming home. Well, at this point, chungs said he had had enough of these guys, and he said
he went out pardon me one moment. He went out on the steps and closed the door behind him and said, I'll break up the party, but you guys are not coming inside. I've had enough of you guys. Well, John and Mickey overheard the conversation and they took off running through the back door the police officers. One of them shouted to the other one, go around back and see if you can catch them. To twins. A friend suggested to John and Mickey that they break up and then
nobody would know they were twins. So they made their separate ways home, which took quite a while because they had come each had their own cars and they left their cars at the house, so they made their way home. John, in the meantime, went to a local apartment complex and one of the officers showed up there, and that really spooked him. And when he finally made it home, he was telling his mother that he was kind of frightened
because they showed up at the party. They'd asked for him, they had already been harassing him, and then they show up in the apartment complex where he went afterwards, and he was worried about it. Well, it just so happened that when the police officer the FBI had been involved earlier, they had gotten some photographs that were just photographs one of the girls tech took. There was nothing to be seen in them. There were just a bunch of kids
having funded a motel party. He came back the FB my agent came back to returned the photographs, and Sandra told him about John and Mickey being followed and about the party and how that upset John, and they just blew it off, like you know, officer as a They said that that area was not in Rumors patrol area. She said, what are you talking about? You know police cars have wheels, and yeah, she's they blew it off, And she said, I just got to ask you, you know,
so what does it take for you guys to pay attention? Yeah, and she became even more inclined to believe what John and Mickey had been telling them.
Yeah. H Now you talk about mid April at Howard County District Court, Graham's takes John aside. What's he trying to get John to be convinced about? What's he asking John to do?
He's asking John to drop charges against Pete Wright. That he didn't put it like that. He was just saying, are you sure that it was right that at the hotel in addition to Mickey getting strangled, an officer put a night club on John's neck, pressed him down against the concrete and choked him. And it was Pete Wright. And all that had happened there was John recognized right because he had he moonlighted as a security officer at a local village center, and John was just happy to
know somebody that was there. He thought maybe it would be some advantages to guy knew him, he would know he was in trouble. But Right seemed to take offense at just being recognized, and so he choked him with a night stick. Well, it seemed for some reason that the police department internal affairs wanted to charges dropped against Right, and John came back in the courtroom and Sander said, what's it about? And she says, he said, I think they want me to drop the charges in it. Right,
And she said we why don't you do it? Because she didn't think that he was Right was a major player in the whole thing. And John said, no, it's just didn't feel right to me. I know what he did. Well, then Graham called him back for a second interview and clearly manipulated the interview. And I got the tape and I listened to the tape. It was obvious that he set him up to John was a very honest person, and so he got him to say, well, are you positive that was right? I mean, did you look away
at any time? He said, yeah, I looked away. So he kind of manipulated the conversation so that it boxed John into saying that well, I saw him walk toward me. I saw his feet, and because he was standing there, I'll assumed he was one he choked me. And after that the charges he gets, right, were dropped.
Absolutely. You right that it's the end of April and there's incidents of the profoundest. At like two am and John comes running into his parents' room and says that Victor Raymer is outside, and then Sandra heard some running, so they check to see if he he's there. The gate's open, normally it's locked. And then there's another incident May second. What happens May second? After this again, April thirtieth, what do they find.
Well, it was the same kind of thing. He said that somebody was in the backyard, and Sander went out and she didn't see anybody, but she heard footsteps. What she said it sounded like two people running away from the backyard. And John's bedroom was in the second floor of a townhouse and the screen to the window was punched in. And after that they started putting locks on everything, incredible windows, doors.
Yeah, and they're afraid May third again. Jeff Phipps, the guy that was twenty one, had the party. That left of the party at the motel. He called John to see if he wanted to go to a bar called Chicago's that night, and John said no. Where was John going that night? To see what happens? Tell us about this night of May third? Oh wow, what John is up to?
A lot went on a lot that got just ignored by the police. The young people had decided that they would go to Chicago's, but first they were going to meet at a friend's house a couple of miles away, and John had decided he wasn't going to go. He would go to the friend's house, but then when everybody else went to the bar, he would go back home. And when a friend picked him up, they went. No, actually, he picked a friend up in his car. They went
to the party. They had the party beforehand. Jeff Phipps came over several times and asked if he was going to Chicago's that night. He said, no, I change his mind, He's not going. They go to the party. The party's ending, people are breaking up, other people are leaving for Chicago's. John's gonna go home, but for some reason, one of the young people Oh chased after some of the friends leaving and to get their attention through John's car keys in a car, and they're looking around for the keys.
They couldn't find them. John's determined to go home, so he just figures he'll find the keys later. He leaves the car at the friend's house. The people that go to Chicago's go to Chicago's and he walks home. Well, he never made it home.
Let's go back just the second. Let's go back just the second you say that he leaves, he decides to walk home. He's in the knee adjoining. He's close by to his home, so it's not too far a walk.
It's not terrible along the walk, maybe a mile and a half.
But he and Sandra have a very very interesting conversation. It's an incredible weekend that's happened. A few days that have happened before. With thinking that knowing that this officer rammers likely in the backyard, he's being followed, he's being harassed, he has these charges. He's trying to be convinced he was convinced to drop charges against once the police officers. One of the police officers. What's the conversation that he and Sandra have before this whole night unfolds.
This was the same night as a party at the friend's house. He was getting ready for the party. He gets Sandra's upstairs in her bedroom. He's in the bathroom. He gets a phone call and just shouts. He comes out of the bathroom and shouts, would have phone up to his ears. He said, you know if that and goes into his bedroom, slams the door, and Sanders immediately learned because that's just not how he talked in the house. So he came into the room and into Sandra's bedroom
to tell her good night. He's going over to a friend's house to a party, and she tries to play it cool and not back him in a corner, being you know, to see if she can find out what happened. So they talk a while and he asked her, you know, he says, you know, Jennifer was coming home from college. He'd been losing weight. Want to know if he looked good. You know, it was his belt too tight, and they said.
She said, now your belt looks fine, and he was saying, you know, if he buys him Jennifer were talking about getting made and he said, well, if he bought a diamond ring for Jennifer, would his mother help him, you know, back the loan, should have put it on the visa. Should he get along she co signed it? She said, yeah, she'd be willing to co sign it. Then he's getting he's ready to leave, and she said, well, what was
the phone call about? Just trying to be real casual, and he said, forget it, mom, I'm going to tell you about that. I'm all I will tell you is them Monday. I'm dropping the charges. And she said, you got to tell me about that and he said no. He said, you'll call the police, and every time you call him it just gets worse. So she says, well, I'm calling by monday. He said, well, please wait till monday. He said, but I'm telling you I'm gonna drop the charges.
So they go downstairs. She falls them downstairs, and he leaves for the party that I told you about.
Right now, we let's get back to when you mentioned he leaves this Keith's place. Keith offers him a arriet. He says, no, right. A woman. Later you find out sees John walking twice. He sees them spots him twice walking home, so it's established he's walking home.
Right now he's close to home, and a neighbor passed him. A neighbor was taking a babysitter home, and a neighbor who lived a few doors down from Sandra John Mickey's family, and she saw him rounding the last corner like to go up the street to the house. And she told Sandra later that the police tried to get her to say that he was looked angry, but the woman said no, she wouldn't do it. He just looked like he was walking.
And then later that night, I don't know how much I want to tell because it kind of I don't want to spoil it for the reader. Some more things happened that night. They were very much out of the ordinary that gave police plenty of reason to believe that this was not There was a very suspicious death.
Let's talk about what happens though, is he leaves he's walking home last spotted or he leaves Key's place maybe around ten to twenty, right, and and he's nearby. Now, you talked about Sandra and some of her psychic abilities that often or once in a while, she would have a premonition. Now she is the kind of person that would stay up listen watch for her sons to come home on that night. You say she had a premonition.
But she heard voices outside at some point, and she thought it was Jeff, and she saw it was Mickey and it was a car door slammed, and she's the voice sounded similar. She thought it was and so but it was Mickey. But Mickey was in his room right. So now you say that there was some premonition, what does she what does she have a premonition of? And tell us what happens?
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She saw an event unfolding, and that's as much detail as on to give that something out of the ordinary was going to happen to John and it was threatening and she went running out to tell him to stay home, but he was already gone.
Right next door is the Phipps place and at Sylvia Phipps at around two am, they didn't. She watches that Sylvia Phipps welcomes her son, Jeff Holme. Then you write about a former Michigan police officer who lived with his wife in the End unit, a couple of doors down from Sandra and Jim Kaiser, her husband. Right around two am, he got a phone call and it was just a hang up, and he got another phone call, but it woke him up out of his sleep. After he's woken out of his sleep, what does he hear?
He had rattling and banging sounds from the vicinity of the school, and he heard them for lasting ten to fifteen minutes. And he also saw a car back up from an area that had visibility of that area and back up through the neighborhood. And by the makeup of the lights and the lighting in the neighborhood, he was pretty sure he knew what kind of car it was.
Now and he's seen in the morning story.
He said, there's just no question about it. He went later on to police report. The police tried to discount it.
Now, this worried woman, Sandra, after she hears all these things, what happens in the morning and he doesn't come home? She has a job. What happens? Tell us what happens the next morning? What does she think? What is? How does she feel? But what happens the next morning?
Who? We're telling a lot? But for opener, somebody broke into the house. While John's body was discovered at the school hanging from a backstop, not hanging from it, but pressed up against it, gripping on to it with the means of his salvation in his hands. But his death was immediately declared a suicide. They didn't do any investigation. They sent his body straight to a local funeral home,
which is just unheard of, with no autopsy. Came to the house to explain that just to the family that in their opinion, John had committed suicide, and.
John family wasn't Mickey, the family wasn't too and the family wasn't convinced. You write about the harrowing experience of the police coming to the home telling Mickey about his brother and saying this, matter of factly, he's dead. Mickey is defiant, says, prove it. They show him his identification. He says, you better call my mom.
Was gone to work by then. Mickey's the one who was at home and heard the person break into the house. He was still asleep.
What did he think about that break and enter? And what did he tell his mother? It's very interesting he had heard those noises, but what did he attribute those two and what did he tell his mother?
He thought John John was on his way to work. So Sander was all upset because she had a premonission about the night and she was just convinced something terrible had happened.
And she.
Called home to find out where John was, and Micky said, don't worry about it. John just left the house. He's on his way home. Well, then she got a phone call and went home, and that's when she had a conversation with the police.
Now you hear again before you hear about this from your wife, Jane, about this horrible news. I got to say to explain more about this hanging. Not to be so graphic, but there's a backstop for all people that you know behind a baseball diamond. People are very familiar with a backstop with a screening and a couple of
big polls. But there had been this cable that the school had used for various reasons and won't go into that, but there was a cable up there that he was attached to and they and so we won't get into
exactly what was said to Sandra. But you find out from your wife Jane about this, what do you do in terms of reaching out to the family, and then how do you get involved in this before we start telling talking about all the details that you are given and be able to further this investigation on behalf of John Bowie.
But at this point I didn't know anything. I called home to tell my wife it was a Friday, and I just said I had to work late, and she interrupted me and said that John Bouie was dead. He had committed suicide. Well, I was just stunned. It just
didn't sound like John. But not knowing any of the above, and because it was being and a lot of other things, because it was being said by authorities, I believed it and I just forgot about work and I came home and I was very upset, but I was self conscious. At this point I didn't really know Sander and her family well enough. We weren't regular friends, like keeping up
with each other's lives. I had to call a friend of John's and Mickey's to find out where they were living now because Sandra had gotten married, and so he told me where they were living, and I said that, you know, I was kind of reluctant to go there because I was just self conscious, and thank goodness, he talked me out of it, and he said, you gotta go. Well, I told Jane, I'll be back in a few minutes.
My wife and I show up, and I mean, there are just dozens of people still at the house and I all I intended to do was all for my condolences and to at least speak to Mickey, and so I did that, and then I was ready to leave, but Sanders said, please don't. And she said it and with such intensity, I thought, Okay, I'll stick around, even though I was been uncomfortable. So I just sat around listening to people talk about the red roof inn and being harassed and it just sounded unber levable to me,
and I just was like stunned. And then the family's attorney, one of them, Joe Glasgow, showed up with papers saying that they could keep Victor Riemer away from John, and I said, wait a minute, who's dreamer. Well then that just led to a flood of stories, and at one point Joe Glasgow, the attorney, said that John wasn't really hanging from the backstop. He was lying against it. His head was on the top of the backstop. He was clutching the wire with his fists, just clutching it with
his fingers through the wire. Well, that just shocked me, and I said, you got to be kidding me, I said, this kid, I know. I'm sorry. I'm starting to lose it.
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slash murder. Now I know recalling hearing about this, the details of the person that you knew about their again, what police are calling a suicide for anybody that knows John, Sandra, yourself, everyone, everyone's in incredible disbelief the idea that the police would have deemed that there will be no autopsy, and that the one person that that Sandra spoke to said, I'm an authority here and I'm going to be determining whether it's there was an autopsy or not. Now, you did
get together, you signed you got a petition together. Almost immediately you became involved, rolled up your sleeves. There was a team of people involved in this, and so you start doing some investigation. You say, you talk to other people about Victor Raymer's behavior to establish just what kind of person he was. You talked to a person named Charlie Brown and about his son, Andy Brown. What are the kinds of things that you found out about Victor
Raymer and this investigation? And what were the Internal Affairs Division doing on behalf of this? The people that are supposedly helping to look into what really happened to John.
That's a big chew. Andy Brown had a very similar experience. And Andy, I'd known only as his dad, was an excellent parent coach, and I had played against him and he had been and lost our teams that I coached. And I called him to find out if he knew about some other kids that are supposed to have had a incident with the police, and he said, yeah, he was one of them. Well, and he's one of those people that I just trusted, you know. He told me something.
I believed it, and he repeated an equally harrying story to match the red roof in about he and some other friends had been to a party and they wound up getting beat up and taken to the police station, kicked in the police station, and long story short, he winds up being found guilty of resisting arrest and other things, and he got put on all kinds of community activities he had to do for a long time, and just said he had he had no use for the police
in the county, that it just it was unbelievable. What are you going through? And when I remember talking to his dad, and his dad said, when I went to talk with Andy, his dad said, you know, I didn't know about the police around here until this happened to Andy. But I'm telling you. Watch you back. I said, what are you talking about? He said, I'm just telling you. Well, I didn't say anything. We didn't got my attention. I
took a statement from Andy. We went back and forth until I finally had it right to his satisfaction and turned it into the attorneys so that they could use it, and it got blown off. Like a lot of other statements, there was.
An effort by the city to look and police to look like that there was there was. They were looking into the concerns of Sandra and yourself and the reverend. And in that respect, you said that that you found a lot of things like, for example, this combination lock for this cable, and their approach to the same evidence
about this lock. Not to get into all those little details, but what are the kinds of things that they said as they concluded about this suicide and the cable and some of the things that he must have done to be able to commit this suicide. And then after that, tell us how the press responded to those same claimed.
Well, there was a lock, the cable that was around his neck was locked down. The athletic director at the school confirmed that it was locked down. The lot was never found. And I kept trying to explain to people, you know, that makes no sense. That means this kid determined on committing suicide, as you claim, had declined the backstop twice, get rid of, get the lock off, the cables of the now come back down and get rid of the lock, go back up. That makes no sense.
But they just blew that off and eventually said, we just don't think it was locked down. We think you're mistaken. And there were several other things like that. We made a list, we will make sure they had everything that we knew. And there were other things very much like that. We said, you know what about this and this and this, and they just discounted it and said, nah, not important, or it doesn't matter, I mean, or we can't find out.
And the press is dependent on the police department for stories, you know, the police department has press reviews. The press goes there, they get the story and to some extent telling the police department side of things. They don't have much of a choice. They can talk to other people. But it turned out being just there were so many things that just never made the press. And that's one reason I wrote the book is to get things into the public's hands that were never told. And they're just
tons of tons of things. I always believed that if the public knew what we knew, they wouldn't want to put up with it any more than we did, and it just never came to that point where they knew.
You also talk about two bullets that were found and the idea of duct tape and vinyl cable. Just tell us about duct tape and tell us about the two bullets and what you might think that indicates as a possibility.
Well, two bullets were found that during the that morning that John's body was found. One was old and dirty and the other was clearly new. And I didn't at first know quite what to make about that. I mean, there's several possibilities, and you could speculate just odd they were found at the backstaff one of the detectives, who seemed to be trying to take a very honest and honorable approach, but it was not really as so far as I knew directly connected with the investigation.
Later.
Also noticed that there was duct tape that had been pulled away from the cable that kind of held everything in place. He said, it just looked like it was freshly removed. And then the Buie Kaiser family found similar duct tape in their backyard, which is just bizarre. Like when I found about that, found out about that, I find you know, it just makes no sense. I mean, but I just don't know what to say about that.
They also claimed that he had an eighteen percent blood alcohol level, which would again they said, attributed to his being drunken out of his mind and not being reasonable. What did you think about that? And in the second you guys pushed for a second autopsy in that tell us about the first autopsy results, But then what were the second autopsy results, and what was the difference in terms of people attending and what happened.
Well, the first autopsy just basically decided that there was a suicide. There's a police officer standing there, which is the normal procedure offering investigative details. And the family was just very worried that it was not going to be an honest autopsy. So they had a second autopsy done and the family paid for it and without spoiling it for everybody. There was very interesting differences things in the
second autopsy that were not in the first. And a friend of mine that became involved as well, Reverend David Rogers, called the second the medical examiner for the second autopsy who was in West Virginia and wanted to know about some of these things that were in it. And the medical examiner said they definitely could have been the cause of death, and they happened. They weren't a result from hanging on the backstop, and they weren't even in the first autopsy.
Tell us about Ginny Thomas, we might beget a little bit ahead, But tell us about Genny Thomas. How you know her and what do you think you can do by employing her her help?
Jenny's just an honest politician. She was a friend of a family friend we had my wife and I had
supported her in past elections. She knew that I coached baseball acted me to try to have a meeting between the police and the community to see if they can sort things out, and it was an honest intention, and so I said sure, And that kind of got me involved to a deeper degree because that's what led me to be talking with all these young people and finding out what they could tell me about the Red roof Inn.
And then as a consequence, there was a meeting between the police and the community, and long story short, the police just had an answer for everything. And just to add to that, soon after, there was an article in a local newspaper saying that the chief police have called a press conference for the purpose of quelling rumors that it was on the sumer side suicide. And I thought, for crying out loud, you know you're supposed to be
investigating what kind of rumors you try to quill? Just go find out, So that that was annoying to say the least.
It's it's very interesting in the book, how you you're you're courageous, but you're you're infuriated at this what you call a whitewash committee. That you've got their attention. It seems you're you're confident, or at least you're optimistic with say, and yet you admonish these people. You admonish these people. You're you're not afraid to admonish these people over the things you say, the treatment by police of the Bowie family number one, and all of the things that they
didn't investigate that they did. They again, even when you admonished them, they didn't have an answer for those things. Did they the specific things like the Locke and accounting for his time? Many things that they did not answer to, And that meeting was ended, Wasn't it.
The reason I called it the whitewash committee in my mind was because makeup of the committee. There was an attorney who was supposed to be charging Mickey with various things. There was somebody from the Office of the Law who was involved in charging Mickey, and I thought, there's no
way I'm going to be outspoken in this committee. All I was doing was showing up there to be a presence to keep the story alive and hope that something would arise that would persuade people to investigate it, honestly, but I had no hope for the committee coming up with anything. They didn't and I wasn't even a major contributor in it. And I did say some things that got in the papers that I'll let the reader find out what they were.
Now, when does the state police become involved? You were talking about this meeting and there's some people sitting there. When are you introduced? When is everyone introduced to the state police? And what's the rule? What are they going to do in this case?
This is probably a good time to mention just how naive I was, because I just thought you took information, you gave it to the justice system, and they did something about it. And it was at the meeting, the community meeting with the police, that the county prosecutor we call a state's attorney in Maryland introduced these people from the state Police and said they're going to have an independent investigation. And I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to
go home and go back tell Sandra about it. But I was very impressed with him and It didn't dawn on me until later that it wasn't independent at all that they were answering to the very people. The county prosecutor who was responsible for finding Mickey guilty of things, and the guy who was the head of the committee of the special investigation was a personal friend of the local chief police. So that kind of slowly don't know me, and I mean slowly, I just the information I gathered.
I just kept taking in, thinking, well, good, how about this, how about this, how about this? And it just kept getting blown off.
Now, an incredible incident happens in this again all ever increasing and fascinating story. There's a knock on Sandra's door one night, a woman named Lisa. There's some information that she tells them. She believes that I'll let you tell it, but she believes that Mickey's in danger. Tell us what she saw, what she thinks she saw. Tell us about this incredible event, and what happens after.
Lisa thought, or at least she said, she saw somebody being abducted at the backstop. This was all the night before, Oh, Johnny, Mickey's friend and Jeff Phipps were to testify in court, and she can finally persuaded Sandra to go take a look, but they didn't find anything. And then the next morning we hear that Jeff has in fact been abducted, according to him. And I don't know what to tell you
about that. It was just harrowing. It was unbelievable. I was spelling out in greater linked than the book, but it was just bizarre.
You talk about that, the first thing anyone heard was that he was strangled and meaning dead and so incredibly, this is at the backstop, and and Sandra had warned people, because we didn't mention this, that there's vigils at this backstop. There's a vigil.
It was July the fourth, and they had a vigil. It was the night before they were to testify against the police. And after it was over, there were fireworks and some of the kids hung around at the fire at the backstop, and Sandra felt like she had a premonition and she came down and told the kids to
get away from the backstop. There was dangerous down there. Well, this field finally cleared, the backstops are over, and Jeff just goes there to kind of sit and think about the testimony he's giving the next day and get himself settled, and he said somebody came up behind him and wrapped a cord around his neck and walked him off into the woods. He fainted, woke up, frightened, called police, went to the hospital, showed up the next day in court
to testify. It's more involved than that, but that's enough.
What the idea that he was strangled and then the idea of this vinyl rope and you as you write that he can't see who's leading him around? Incredibly with this, with this some kind of rope, some kind of apparatus where he can't see. He can't see, but he's been a lad around and they need to pull on tightly on this cable or rope, as he says, But he didn't and that tightens it up, and he faints. He's in an area, doesn't he doesn't know? And then he
supposedly goes to the hospital. What are you told by by the attorney for Mickey? What are you told this is part of the team of this people that are concerned, that want to investigate this. What does Tina Gutaris tell you to do well?
One of the family attorneys at this point was Christina gudier Is. At the time, I didn't know that she was the attorney for I didn't know anything about cereal one or she had had was the attorney that was attorney of record at any had SAYD trial. She was at that She was at the top of her game two weeks before she had She was the first Hispanic woman to ever have a case. She was an attorney of record.
For a.
Court heard before the US case heard before the US Supreme Court, and she was a rising star in the local area. She was she was a force. She That's first time I ever saw her was on July the fifth, after Jeff said he was strangled and I introduced myself. She wasn't quite sure who I was, but Sandra said I was okay, and she asked me to go to the hospital and find out get Jeff back there because he needs did testify. And so I went to the hospital, but some friends had already picked him.
Up and.
Taken him back to testify. But more than once in this case, when people showed up and something unusual happened, the case got postponed. It's like one time they brought in somebody to call it said it was a hanging judge, meaning very prone to prosecute, to find people guilty. And then this time, because of all the commotion, they postponed it. So we went over to Attorney Joe Glasgow's office. Tina Goodiers was there. She got Jeff a separate attorney because
she said, this case is just getting too crazy. And that's where I learned the story about Jeff. I talked to him personally then and later several times.
Now you have a people and I mentioned your team, your unofficial team here, but you also have some of these people that were involved in that motel, friends of John and Mickey that are also involved. You talk about as Shan Stewart, he finds some stuff, tell us about the significance of the snuff container.
The significance to me, Sean was a very bright young man who very courageous, and he went to the scene where Jeff woke up, and he found things that were just lying about, and he packed him up in a plastic bag and gave him to the state police. And basically the state police said we're not interested. And I said, well, what do you mean you're not interested? I said, you could at least take a look, and they blew it off. They said, now this is for the county to look into.
It's not our jeurisdiction. And that kind of surprised me. Says they were the independent investigators. But that's what they did, and they never did anything with it. He just got what he looked lost in the story.
Now, this conversation with Johnsonelli, this former again an incredible person in terms of a former Michigan police officer. What was the police viewpoint on time of death? And so as a result, what did they do with the two am to three am claims by Johnsonelli.
They kept saying that they were saying an earlier time of death, and Sinnelli was saying, no, that's not it. It was later because the noises he heard. And they actually went to talk to another guy and tried to get him to say that he had all he'd heard was laughing come from that area because he was a
writer and he was up that time of night. And when I read that in the police report, I just assume they're trying to counter what Snelli said because he was credible, and John and I talked several times and they just discounted that, just like everything else.
Tell us about the grand jury.
I didn't know at the time. Tina Goodier has explained this to me, and now I understand. Grand jury historically is a charade. The county prosecutor is running it. He decides what people here, and he's also the one who's charging Mickey with various things, and he's also responsible for deciding whether police officers are involved. And there are parts about that that I don't want to do diss because again it might just spoil it for the reader. But
I tried. I just tell what I know and what happened, and it's clear that he had no intention to find anybody guilty, and that's how it turned out. And what I learned was that if you don't do what the count, what the prosecutor wants you to do in a grand jury is called a runaway grand jury. Tiny Goodiers explained that to me. And so they're innocent in the process.
They're just hearing what they're what they're being told. And I actually was in the courthouse several times when they were there, and I remember one time, particularly, Lysander and I were in the basement of the courthouse and they walked out and they spotted us and they recognized us, and they looked absolutely angry, and I thought, geez, well on earth are they being told? At the time, we weren't allowed to talk about it because it's supposedly secret
process until it's over. But eventually I talked to Mickey, and Mickey is a very direct person, and he said they just asked him stupid things like did he how much did he drink? And did he smoke marijuana? He said they weren't interested in any details that he could have told him.
What is Sandra doing in all of this in terms of her reaction? Of course, she's reaching out to these authorities always. You mentioned that committee everyone attended, but she was absent from that committee. She did not attend. What is she doing through this? How is she handling this? What is her what is her mood through all of this?
There's some parts of that that I won't tell that are very startling, But I will say that Sander's remarkable and she's very direct. Splikey doesn't say it. You just don't want to mess with Sander. And she saw to it that things got into the newspapers. She got petitions written to counter things that what I call the Whitewash Committee was saying she wrote letters to the flyer. It quite remarkable and she basically, from my perspective, turned the county upside down.
Quite a bit of this book is part of the incredible nature of this is the premonitions that Sandra has and the timing of those premonitions and just her abilities. But what we haven't mentioned is that one of the again unseen partners in this team is somebody helping you and they have psychic abilities that have been proven to you over and over again. Tell us who you go to and what your mother's participation was in this case.
Well, one of the interesting things. And again I won't go into a lot of detail, so it's not to spoil it. People have different opinions about psychic ability, and I respect that. I think it's important to keep a balanced view, and I don't mind skeptics at all. I think it gives that kind of conversation balance. But the fact is I grew up with a psychic mother. It was a rather remarkable experience for me. She wasn't trying
to sell anything. She was a very psychic, very spiritual person, and if you'd asked her, if she had to give up one of those abilities, she would gladly have given ving ups, given up being psychic, but she couldn't. And when things just seemed to be all wrong to me, I finally just broke down and called her and asked her what she thought happened, and she put a lot of time into it, and it helped steer me into my thinking. You don't think you don't take those things literally,
you take them as well. This really gets my attention. And now, for example, you can't go on the stand in the court and say, well, my mother told me, and she's psychic, that this is what happened. But it does help steer you and give some credibility to keep your mind open so that you keep looking for things that might really be evidence that can be used. And it was very helpful I told to my mother throughout this thing, and it was a wonderful opportunity to get
grounded and get perspective. And of the remarkable people that I've met who have this kind of ability and just don't want people to know it because they don't want people to think they're crazy, And that's a terrible loss, if you ask me, for society, when somebody is really skilled and honest and has a grip on it. I always told myself that if I ever met anybody with that kind of ability, I would support them anyway I could
and try to encourage them. Well, this had been going on for quite a long time when it finally dawned on me, I had actually been given that opportunity, and it was becoming friends with Sandra. Her contribution was just remarkable, sometimes too, sometimes leading her to tell me when I thought I knew what would happen, she said, you don't have a clue. And it got my attention, but it was just part of the mix, and I couldn't tell
the story honestly if I didn't talk about it. And I'll let the reader look into that and see what they think.
You talked about. One day in Glasgow's office, Sandra heard the name of FBI agent investigator investigating John's death was a person named Arthur Bellinger, and she wrote down the name. At this time, what did Lisa house? Again? This Lisa House. It's a very interesting but confusing part of this story. Again. She moves in with Sandra at the same time that the FBI are investigating John's death. What do you make of that? What did you make of.
That let me mention that there are four or five names in books in the book that are not the actual name, and that was for no particular reason except thirty years a going by my original book notes, in an effort to let people know, I didn't feel it was responsible to be throwing people's names around, but so I could let people know publicly of what was going on behind the scenes, I did write it down and dispersed it, and I changed the names because all I
wanted was people to see the details without doing unjust harmed anybody. Well, then years go by and I couldn't reconstruct some of those names, and one of them was this Arthur Bellinger who was FBI. His first name was Ken. I called the FBI office and asked for his right name, but they never called me back, so I just to keep him in the story, I had to change his name, and I would much have preferred to use his right name, but it just turns out that's not it. The same
thing is true, interesting enough of Arthur Graham. I just I couldn't be sure that I was talking about the right person, and I didn't want to do a disservice
to anybody, so I just made up a name. But once, I think, once the FBI and got involved, Lisa House shows up at Sander's house and basically moved in and told moved in with her and said she was afraid to go home, and there were lots of terrible things going on, and I won't go into linked the detail, but she basically was trying to pull information out of out of the family and it just it was all very strange, and eventually Sander kicked her out, and that's
let's just leave it there. There's a lot more detail in the book.
You talk about the f by FBI being involved, and so people are vindicated in terms of their suspicions in that the FBI runs some plates on Raymer and his buddies. And sure enough, as we mentioned before, when it was report saying that he was in the neighborhood, he had a brown pickup, so they have his plates. They have him being in following, being around Sandra when he obviously shouldn't be, other times when he's out of his patrol area,
yet Sandra sees him. So the FBI did get a good take on this, and these Ramer and Johnson are eventually convicted, aren't they excessive.
Force by the police department. The internal Affairs apartment did find them guilty. There was a long and thron out police trial board that I just I just touched on in the book because I couldn't write a thousand page book. But the bottom line was that even though the police department Internal Affairs division found them guilty, the internal there is a follow up procedure and that ruling was overturned.
Now this federal grand jury, Sandra has to appear. Do you have to appear? Tell us about the federal grand jury and the end results in terms of what they were trying to do. You talk about two things that this grand jury had to look at at the same time, tell us about Tina thinking that this should be disconnected or not disconnected.
That was the county grand jury. It was a county grand jury that was in. There was a federal grand jury, but the county grand jury was responsible both for deciding were any police officers involved in John's death or was in what was the death side? And was ord John and Mickey guilty of assault? And it was Tina's feeling was that he just was not right to hold those two things together. But the county prosecutor got to decide, and he decided that they would be decided together. And
that's about all I want to say about that. I don't want to spoil things.
The list that you brought to this Ballinger not his real name. There's three dozen things that you wanted the FBI to know. Did you get to express those and what did they think of those things on that list?
That was an interesting experience. Someone on the Whitewash Committee explained to me that when the FBI, a law enforcement person was explaining to me that when the FBI took a case seriously, they had a bound volume and they kept their notes, but if they weren't terribly interested in who they were interviewing, they used a yellow pad. And the first thing I noticed when I showed up to be talked to by them was that Lisa's car was in the parking lot. It had a distinctive license plate.
It was a distinctive car, and there was no question that Lisa was there in the FBI building, and I took note of it mentally. Then I go in and the FBI agents are talking to me, taking their notes on a yellow pad. I lay out through them everything that I could possibly think of and I came away with the impression that they weren't particularly interested in what
I had to tell them. That's not to say that they weren't, to some extent trying to do an honest job, but I guess short version let me say that, I'll just say that three different people investigated this, and it became eventually obvious that at some point something or somebody made them back off. And that was what I wanted to know. I wanted to know what really happened. How come people are trying to make us back off? Why
can't you do a real investigation? And I've written the book to just show the reader here and here and hear all the things that have happened, some of which we've talked about today, some of which we haven't had time to talk about, and yet they weren't taken seriously. And I want the reader to know what they were. And my hope is that responsible law enforcement officers, because this is not an anti police book. I don't mean
for it to be. I have friends and relatives who have been or are police officers, and I honor and respect what they do, but this was not handled well, and I want honest police officer to read it and not be satisfied. I want the community that never saw these details to read it and not be satisfied. And I really hope that somebody will come forward and feel safe in saying we know something about this. And I don't want it to be a public circus. I just won't.
I want to wake up one morning and read the headlines and say they've found out.
Absolutely. It's also a tribute to the many courageous people that with the police threatening all of these people, Meki, Johnny Chongko, all kinds of people endured the threats of police and that pressure, and yet still people came to you, came forward, came to court to be able to testify, to be able to bear witness to what actually happened.
A courageous I don't want to go ahead. I'm sorry, no, go ahead. I do not want to leave the impression that I was the only person that was looking into this. I mean, this family had a community of friends who were doing everything they could to provide them with the family with information that they could share with the investigating agencies and give them every opportunity to realize this was
no suicide. And let's treat it that way. It wasn't the family's responsibility to investigate and find out what happened, and frankly, it would have been dangerous for them to do that. But they just told everything they knew to the people who were responsible for fighting out and it got explained away time after time.
You finally got a decision from my medical examiner to say that the original verdict was asphyxiation. In the last part of his in the second autopsy, what does he say about homicide being ruled out or ruled in?
Could not rule it out?
Incredible.
Reverend David Rogers called him. I was sitting in the room and he said, what about these things in the autopsy that were not in the other autopsy. Joe Glasgow went to West Virginia during the grand jury recess and went with the state police officer to make sure the family's interests were represented, and he wrote an addendum to his second autopsy, and the addendum the ending sentence in it is I cannot rule out the possibility of homicide absolutely.
I want to thank you very much David Parish for coming on and talking about this incredible book. Losing John. We couldn't discuss all of the incredible things and events and characters that are in this book. But Losing John, a teen's tragic death, a police cover up, a communities fight for justice. Thank you so much, David Parish. This
is a Kensington Press release. Is there a Facebook page for this book or can they just get it wherever they get their books on Amazon and everywhere else it's available.
It was released yesterday and it's available where from books or sold.
Thank you very much. Go ahead, thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. Dan.
Thank you so much. Congratulations on this and the release of this book. Losing John, a teen's tragic death, a police cover up, a community's fight for justice. Thank you very much, David Parish. Good night, Thank you,