In one of the most bizarre cases ever with a poetic justice ending, a serial rapist in Georgia who was wanted by the police for offences dating back to 2015 has finally been apprehended, thanks to background information he provided to the same department when he was applying to join their force.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 24-year-old Kenneth Bowen III joined the Clayton County Police Department academy in June last year but was fired within a few months for lying to supervisors after arriving several hours late for training on September 12.
Though Bowen wasn’t with the academy for long, the information he provided was very crucial and vital to his eventual arrest while he was at work last month.
According to Clayton County Police Chief Kevin Roberts at a press conference, Bowen was behind seven rape incidents and a sexual battery case after forensic evidence linked him to the crimes, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“Had he not attempted to join ranks in the Clayton County Police Department, it is questionable as to when we would have apprehended him,” Roberts said.
Investigators revealed that they initially did not suspect all the cases were linked to one person due to the different circumstances behind the assault of the victims. However, they eventually found evidence linking all the attacks to one suspect.
Lt. Thomas Reimers, an investigator in Clayton County, said a forensic artist at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) drew several sketches of the suspect based on his description by the victims, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“We realized that it’s possible that if he was committing these crimes, breaking into women’s windows and assaulting people by buildings near their apartment complexes, then somebody over the last few years must have talked to police and said, ‘This guy is a suspicious person in the area,’” he said.
As investigations continued, Bowen’s name eventually came up when detectives were scrutinizing 911 calls reporting suspicious-looking people in the vicinity. That call was made in 2016. After investigators successfully obtained Bowen’s photo, they realized it resembled the sketches of the suspect.
Investigators were also able to corroborate other victim accounts which claimed the suspect had tattoos on his right arm and drove a grey car with tinted windows.
The investigators pinned these details to Bowen, who owned silver Ford Focus with tinted windows and had a tattoo on the said arm, Reimers said. The tattoo discovery also led to investigators realizing Bowen was a former employee of the police force.
“And through looking at background information provided, we determined that he reportedly had tattoos on his arm,” Reimers said.
Bowen’s DNA, which was subsequently obtained, linked him to 8 cases, all of which occurred not far from where he lived. He has been charged with 7 counts of rape and 1 count of sexual battery.
The Clayton County Police Department shared a video of Bowen in custody on its Facebook page last week with a sigh of relief.
“WE GOT HIM! Citizens of Clayton County can rest a little bit easier knowing that the serial rapist has been CAPTURED! Great investigative skill set and excellent teamwork has brought his terror to an end!,” the police department captioned.
