Sold and Silenced: The Investigation Behind the Shaniya Davis Case (Part 1)

In this episode, I take you inside one of the most haunting investigations I’ve ever been part of—the Shaniya Davis case. What started as a missing child report quickly escalated into something far more complex, exposing hard truths about human trafficking, systemic failures, and the reality of evil that exists closer to home than most people want to believe. I sit down with retired Fayetteville PD homicide detective Tracey Bowman, who led the case, to walk through how it all unfolded.

We peel back the layers of the investigation—from the initial response and chaotic crime scene to the critical breakthroughs that shifted the case in a new direction. This isn’t just about what happened, but how law enforcement, agencies, and a community came together under unimaginable circumstances. Trust me, this is one of those cases that never leaves you.

Episode Highlights

[0:31] - I introduce the Shaniya Davis case and why it still impacts everyone involved

[3:36] - Tracey gets the call: an endangered missing child sparks a massive response

[5:06] - Inside the trailer: the disturbing conditions that immediately raised red flags

[7:28] - Early interviews reveal inconsistencies—and instincts say something isn’t right

[9:37] - A child’s drawing becomes a pivotal clue that shifts the investigation

[11:20] - Polygraph results expose deception and change the direction of the case

[14:23] - Surveillance footage and evidence identify a key suspect

[17:59] - Phone tracking and coordinated searches bring multiple agencies together

[20:26] - The devastating discovery and the emotional toll on everyone involved

[22:25] - Building the case: charges, evidence, and the challenges behind the scenes

[33:46] - The reality of handling a 16,000-page case file while still working active cases

[39:18] - Trial insights, courtroom dynamics, and the final verdict

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Contact us: mbridgeman@behindthethinblueline.org

This is a heavy one, but an important one—and we’re just getting started. Make sure you follow for Part 2, where we continue breaking down this case and everything that unfolded next. If this episode impacted you, don’t forget to rate, follow, share, and leave a review—it helps us continue telling these stories that matter.

Listener Advisory

This episode includes discussions of real-world violence, criminal activity, and emotionally intense subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.

Transcript

Tracey Bowman: 0:00

I don't think people wanted to believe that something like that would happen, that a mother would watch her five year old child being assaulted. I think nowadays, with the Epstein files, people realize evil exists, this podcast

David L. White: 0:12

contains real world accounts and discussions related to law enforcement, military, criminal investigations, public safety incidents and violent crime topics may include graphic descriptions, strong language, trauma, deaf and emotionally intense subject matter and may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Mark Bridgeman: 0:31

In November, 2009 headlines in North Carolina, nationally and internationally, reported a story that no family wants to hear, no community wants to endure and no law enforcement officer ever wants to work. A five year old child reported missing within days, the search became a homicide investigation. Arrests followed, charges escalated, and the community began asking how something like this can happen inside a home. This case would result in a death sentence, an Alford plea and years of appeals. It would also expose hard questions about the vulnerability exploitation and systemic breakdowns in this episode behind the Thin Blue Line sold in silence, the investigation behind the Shania Davis case, the case that never leaves you. We go inside this investigation with the lead detective. I'm Marc Bridgman. I'm your host. I have over three decades of law enforcement experience at different levels, mainly with the Fayetteville Police Department. I worked with RBC ID as an intelligence criminal intelligence analyst. Covered a lot of different things in my career. You know, Fayetteville is a very interesting place to work at. In this podcast, we cover four pillars, service, sacrifice, strength and support. And today, our guest is Tracy Bowman, who is from Fayetteville Police Department. We're going to be covering a case that Tracy worked, that I worked as a captain, and as a captain, my job is to provide resources to the worker bees. And the Shania Davis case is a tragedy, to say the least, and it's changed a lot of different lives, including myself. You know, this is one of these cases that stick with you. But Tracy, who's retired from the police fayeville Police Department with 26 years she's worked in a lot of different disciplines, from patrol, fraud detective, crimes against persons, homicide detective, homicide specialist, drug diversion detective, is a patrol sergeant, CVSA operator, which is basically a lie detecting device, human trafficking unit sergeant. And she retired back in 2022 she's living in Michigan right now, and she came down to North Carolina to get escape from the wintery weather, snow. Yeah, exactly, you know, I'm glad to have her here on this podcast. This is a follow on to the podcast we did last time with Bill Lux that gave us a 30,000 foot overview of the human trafficking dynamic across the country. Yeah, and this is a getting down to probably one of the worst case scenarios that could happen with human trafficking. So tell us about what happened on November 10, 2009

Tracey Bowman: 3:36

trace, November 10, 2009 I, myself and my partner at the time, Jerry grambo, were on call. And as you know, we rotated on call every every week. So we were on call. So we get called reference to an endangered missing person. Usually we don't handle those unless they're endangered. And so of course, young gives me call. We go out to Sleepy Hollow in reference to Shanaya missing. That was approximately, I want to say it was like seven o'clock in the morning. So it was early. Yeah, it was really early. So we get out there and we start our investigation. When I get out there, my starter tells me no, that I'm going to be the lead on it. This was just totally different than what we normally do, because it was just so encompassed. Because normally, a way a case, as you know that a case works. You know, especially for homicide, you got lead detective in a partner who work a case, and then maybe the other detectives in homicide will assist you. But this ended up, case ended up being all encompassing. I mean, we had pretty much a whole department working on this case, plus the FBI and the SBI working on this case.

Mark Bridgeman: 4:52

Yeah, it was a pretty big operation, to say the least. And in the beginning. Mean, you know, the police department treated as a missing persons case, that's exactly what we thought it was.

Tracey Bowman: 5:06

Yeah, the very beginning, when we get there, we know we see, we see the scene, and the trailer is just horrible conditions. I mean, you had basically two families living in in a two bedroom trailer.

Mark Bridgeman: 5:24

And this, this is in a trailer park in a not so good part of Fayetteville off of Murchison road. And I've been in that trailer park many, many times. I remember going into the trailer and seeing it was in total disarray. I mean it was, yeah, it really reminded me of the crack

Tracey Bowman: 5:43

house I came to just, just stuff on the floor, food on the front room table, the table in the front room one bedroom, was a bedroom where the brother was sleeping in with one mattress that was where Antoinette and Shanaya and the brother would be sleeping,

Mark Bridgeman: 6:02

Nate Antoinette's the mom, the mom of Shanaya. Yeah, yeah. As the case progressed, it kind of like steamrolled into the missing person's case that we started searching in the media area, and then we had to expand our search. And it got to the point, how do we end up going from a missing persons to Lee County? How do we get to that nexus?

Tracey Bowman: 6:29

It took a while to get there at first, because nobody was being honest. Nobody, well, except the brother. But we didn't know he was being honest. They were saying but at the very beginning, you know, as a lead detective, I'm the one that was in charge of basically dealing with the people, you know. I mean, because I said there was just so much going on, you know, we had one Sondergaard was like doing search warrants. You know, Locklear, he's our evidence guy, or forensics, you know. But I dealt with the people. I dealt with Antoinette Brenda, you know, her boyfriend and stuff like that. And who is Brenda? Brenda is Antoinette sister. Okay. And so I tell the other detectives, I want them at the police department. Let's start our interviews at the police department.

Mark Bridgeman: 7:15

So, and that's key too, to, you know, get him in our environment and not in a place that's comfortable to them correct to do a good, comprehensive interview.

Tracey Bowman: 7:28

Yeah, and from get go, we decided, you know, to record the interviews just because just didn't seem right. You know, in what she was saying, it just things weren't feeling honest. From get go yes, and at the very beginning, talking to Antoinette come to find out, you know that Shanaya was actually with her dad first, but her dad was leaving town a lot, so then her dad was having her Shanaya stayed with his sister, right? But then what happened was, when the dad had left, Shania went to go stay with her mom, and then her mom didn't want to give her back to the sister.

Mark Bridgeman: 8:09

No, was there any, was there any formal custody arrangements or anything like that with Shania?

Tracey Bowman: 8:15

They said there were. Was in reference to having written Power of Attorney for the sister, but it was all kind of really just not normal, not not we would think as a normal thing going on in reference to people having custody and stuff, you know, because we had asked the sister, in reference to, why didn't you just get her back? And she's like, Well, I'm not the real, you know, mom or dad. And I didn't think I have the right to go get Shania from Antoinette. So there was a possibility. We were thinking maybe, you know, the dad came, because we found out he, I think he arrived that same day, or within the time frame. So we thought maybe they came and got Shanaya, you know. So we were looking at that that find out, no, that wasn't, that wasn't the case. That wasn't the case at all. The gymnastics had the brother, and I'd rather not say his name, because he might have moved on from this. I don't want to, well, you know, he moved on, but he was me, he helped. I mean, he helped the case a lot, but, I mean, when I say moved on, I mean, I don't you know it. People don't mind. I know he was involved. I not want people involved. No, he was involved, and that was his sister, and that's up to him to decide. But the juvenile detectives, Rosenberg and Jordan, took him to the juvenile and

Mark Bridgeman: 9:37

both very good juvenile detectives,

Tracey Bowman: 9:41

both are popular game. Yeah, they did a very good job. They sat him down and gave him some some stuff to draw. And this comes into play a lot later, when we got the whole picture. But you know, he drew a picture of his family. Um. I believe it was Rosenberg said, you know, draw a picture of your family. He did a picture of his family. Then they left the room, and they come back, and he had drawn a picture, and the picture was basically the crime scene. The picture was what he described as his mom sitting on this couch, which Antoinette said she was sitting on, and the picture was, was a male leaning over Shania. Is Shanaya on the ground, and Shania was saying, Mama, I believe what the brother told the detectives, the general detectives, was that the suspect had picked up Shanaya, and later on ground was hugging her. And, you know, he was only seven years old at his time, yeah, and he said it was Mon, I think he said Mondo or mono. And so they told me that information. And I go back to Antoinette, and I asked about the name, and she denies any knowledge of it. So did Brenda. And they all at the time, denied any knowledge of who this person was that came to that to their trailer that night, yeah, but find out later that was a lie.

Mark Bridgeman: 11:11

Now, how long did they actually stick to their story?

Tracey Bowman: 11:17

They stuck to the story until we could prove them wrong.

Mark Bridgeman: 11:20

And I recall bringing in the FBI, their polygrapher from Charlotte, yeah, just by happenstance, he was the same polygrapher that did, did my background polygraph, you know. So I know he's good interviewer, because he was able to pull things out of me that I never called people. So did she fail the poly?

Tracey Bowman: 11:43

Yeah, I've watched some other podcasts, I guess you would call them on schnag Dave's case, yeah, civilians and they got the timelines all wrong. Sure You went missing on, on on the 10th, correct on the 11th is when the polygraph was was done on Antoinette, and she failed. Yeah, just failed. And so, you know, I went in with the polygraph for polygraph her, and I interviewed her again, and I basically told her she failed and that she wasn't telling us the truth. To tell us the truth, and she decided to tell us the story that her boyfriend, at the time, had come in to the trailer and they had gotten into an argument, and that Shania had walked out of the bedroom, and he had basically punched Shania and she fell down to the ground, and that he picked Shania up and left with her. Okay, and so when I spoke to her, the first we first spoke to her, that was in the polygraph room, we're not allowed to videotape, I guess, their policy or whatever, yeah. So I took her into another room, and I said, Okay, let's go over this again to make sure we get this right. And so she went over, we run again, saying, yeah, it was her boyfriend got argument punched in ire and I was like, why didn't you jump up and run after her? And she said she was naked. I'm sorry, okay, but if my child is, I don't care if I'm butt naked with I don't weird. I don't care I'm running after her absolutely, you know. So I knew she was lying again. Well, I didn't know she was lying. I knew there was something not right, correct, but I took her out a word that it was, it was Clarence that kidnapped Shania. So I took Warren sat on Clarence. Clarence CO, Clarence CO, Clarence co okay, it was her boyfriend at the time. So I took words out and won her statement that same day is when we got the information in reference to possibly Shanaya being seen at the hotel in Sanford. Yeah, we had detectives, juvenile detectives, again, they were very helpful in a lot of stuff. Since it was a juvenile that went missing, we had them go out there. Unfortunately, on that day, they couldn't get the video, and so we were having to, have to wait till Thursday morning. So Thursday morning they go out. But they did get some information. The name that was on the thing was Mario McNeil, you know. And we started, and this was, though, after I've already taken out the warrants, sure, yeah. And so we start researching, pulling up the name Marc McNeil, you know, it's a guy with

Mark Bridgeman: 14:23

dreadlocks, and Mario had a lengthy criminal history. Yeah, him, yeah, to say the least, yeah, he had been involved in, and it's all public information, you know, yeah, shootings and Yeah, he did time in prison for that previously, and he had just gotten out of prison three or four months, if not a little bit longer, yeah, before this incident,

Tracey Bowman: 14:47

yeah, he was just a perpetual Yeah. He was Yeah, but so, so we get the video. And sure enough, you know, the video matches his his arrest photos. That was on a Thursday. So then. So when we find that out, you know, I have to get the warrant squashed for Clarence, so, but at that point, we'd already arrested him. We had SWAT go out there and get him, hoping to find Shania in the house. But so then I have Antoinette come back in, and I go at her hard about why you lied. And she said because she was scared of me. I guess I'm a scary person. Yeah, so, and I go after nine, and I felt the photos in front of her, in reference to, you know, Mario with Shanaya at the hotel. And I'm like, What's this in the photos we have? Is him coming and going, but when he's carrying her, he's carrying he's leaving. So she was alive when, you know, I left the hotel

Mark Bridgeman: 15:48

while he was at the hotel with Shania. What transpired?

Tracey Bowman: 15:54

We don't know all that what transpired, and I'll be honest. Well, we do know he went and got a juice and took some juice back. They were only in the hotel for an hour. In reference to the DNA, we had both comforters in that room taken and checked for DNA, his DNA, there were like other DNA on the comforters, but it was, yeah, it's a hotel. I'll never think of hotels the same. Yeah, I understand none of His DNA was on there. Now, what I honestly believe in that, and I'll you can't get me to believe otherwise. And I think I know a lot of about this case, he assaulted Shania from her mom at the trailer. Assaulted, sexually, sexually assaulted Shanaya in front of her, her her mom, yeah, on the trailer, on the trailer floor, yeah, oh, that's where the brother, that's where the brother saw the hug. And then also, there was a blanket that was found in a trash can where his girlfriend, one of his girlfriends, was staying, was found in Marc McNeil's girlfriend, yeah, one of them in a trash can, and it had his believe it was just pubic hair blanket. You know, back then people, I don't think people wanted to believe that something like that would happen, that a mother would watch her child, her five year old child, being assaulted. I think nowadays, though, with the Epstein files, people realize evil exists.

Mark Bridgeman: 17:26

Oh yeah, total evil. Evil exists. And being in law enforcement, as long as we have, yeah, I never say never you know. So mario takes Shania and leaves the hotel. And where does he go from there?

Tracey Bowman: 17:42

From the phone records the FBI was able to track, he came back into Fayetteville. It looked like he was traveling to Fayetteville, and then backtracked a little bit to where her around, where her body was found, from the phone records, and then went basically home from the phone records.

Mark Bridgeman: 17:59

Yeah, in that those phone records led to, you know, us doing an exhaustive search, yeah, you know, and I was, I was tasked with the being the leader of that search. And if it wasn't for Lee County Emergency Management and Shane seagroves, we would have been totally lost in the sauce, because they jumped in with both feet. They brought their command posts out. They set up the whole search, the grid searches. We had like 300 volunteers looking for this girl.

Tracey Bowman: 18:33

Yeah, like I said, it wasn't just, you know, homicide unit or Fayetteville police department. It was just FBI, SBI, other agency. It just, you know, just couldn't have been solved in the other way, yeah.

Mark Bridgeman: 18:47

I mean, like, yeah, it was all, all hands, but no doubt, and there was always a glimmer hope that we would find her alive. That was a tough,

Tracey Bowman: 18:56

tough day. It was really that was that it was a tough well before, even before her body was found, it was a tough day, because when we found out it was Mario, I had just finished my exhaust my third interview with with Antoinette, confronting her that we knew it was Marc and I get out of the interview, and I was told by Sergeant Pollard that Mario was had come in voluntarily. And I guess I'm now the back. I'm like, I must have been in shock, because all I kept on saying was, where's Shania, then, where's Shania then? And I realized I can't interview him. I'm I'm done with what you know, that interview with her, with Antoinette, had just wore me out. I mean, anybody that's done in an interview, of course, it gets to you So, and

Mark Bridgeman: 19:43

this is where, you know, we talk about in the podcast, the human the human toll it takes. Oh, yeah, you know, people working these cases, you know. And I can totally understand. And sometimes you have to hand off an interview to somebody

Tracey Bowman: 19:57

else, yeah. So that's live. It was. Pollard went on course, you know, started the interview with, with Mario. And then, you know, when, when I started getting out of that, it started to dawn on me, she's not alive.

Mark Bridgeman: 20:14

Yeah, we searched exalt. We had helicopters, we had all kinds of assets. It looking for this little girl, yeah? And ultimately, we found her,

Tracey Bowman: 20:26

yeah, that Monday, you know, when we got him on Thursday, and then that's when this, she started searching the whole from from the hotel back to

Mark Bridgeman: 20:34

Fayetteville, right? But we dialed in, because Marc McNeil obtained an attorney that provided information to where her where she was located at, or about where she was located at, yeah. And we were able to dial in a search. And ultimately, you know, I was one of the first ones there that saw her in her final resting place, you know. And it was sad, yeah,

Tracey Bowman: 20:59

because it had rained from, from the night, in the morning she went missing till, you know, we found it rained that whole week, and her feet were, you know, basically in the creek, you know. And that where her body was underneath the log was with the waterway, so that water was washing over her for a whole week. Yeah, you know, she had leaves and everything all over,

Mark Bridgeman: 21:22

yeah, and she was in the fetal position when we found her,

Tracey Bowman: 21:26

and I was she had one eye open,

Mark Bridgeman: 21:28

yeah, seasoned detectives, including myself, you know, we're breaking down. Oh, yeah, you know. And you know, it's one of these cases that sticks with you, you know. And I think anybody that was out there during that time, you know, remember that day, you know, I remember Ed greenness, Bunty Russ, they came out to the crime scene, you know, which I, you know, being working in Fayetteville for so long, I've never seen Ed grant has come out to a crime scene. Or Bunty Russ, and she was like, his number one prosecutor, yeah, or one of them, you know, they did a great job as well. But after we recovered Shania. How did the case progress at that point?

Tracey Bowman: 22:25

Well, to be honest, my sergeant told me go take the wands out right away, and because we knew that there might be a power play in reference to, you know, where, who does the charges the way it is the case. Started kidnapped and started in Fayetteville, correct? So, you know, technically, we had the authority to do that, so that's what we did. There was some I'm not going to do things I didn't like about what I was allowed to charge and what I was not allowed to charge.

Mark Bridgeman: 22:57

It gets into,

Tracey Bowman: 22:58

yeah, politics and stuff like that and stuff, and I understand, because, like, I'm not the one that's gonna try the case, you know, of course.

Mark Bridgeman: 23:09

And to backtrack a little bit where shania's body was found, it was in an area with that was covered with kudzu, and that's where the local hunters would dress their deer and discard the carcasses and, you know, basically the guts of their hunt, yeah, you know, in to have her thrown in, that was just like, the garbage, yeah, yeah. It was just like, you know, unthinkable that one human being could do that to another. So the FBI did a solid, you know, put track in the phone. Oh, yeah, yeah. They did tremendous job. Yeah.

Tracey Bowman: 23:53

Well, they did from get go, you know, they did the circumstances, search warrants on the phones. And then, you know, after it was all said and done, you know, they backtracked and then did the tracking of the phone and triangulation and all that stuff. Yeah, you know, which was awesome.

Mark Bridgeman: 24:13

Well, you know, and we're talking about 2009 technology, which is today, it's commonplace to have that level of technology and tracking people and, you know. But, you know, back then, it was like cutting edge, and it was basically used for the global terror, war on terror, you know. And you know, I remember talking to an agent saying, No, we're doing this. It's the right thing to do.

Tracey Bowman: 24:39

Yeah, yeah, you know, they I'll tell because he was, he was in the, in the trial, Frank rostrom, yeah, Frank, he was awesome, yeah, you know, he was awesome, you know, because he stayed with it. You know, it wasn't like, you know, okay, we, we arrested the person, and then they can leave. You know, which? Lot of times happens. You know, he stayed around, he did the phones. He was like, what else do you need? What do you need me to do? And that that helps quite a bit.

Mark Bridgeman: 25:08

Yeah, Frank's a solid guy. So taking the charges out, this guy wound up having national, if not International, media.

Tracey Bowman: 25:17

It had, I think it did happen International, because I was talking to somebody that was overseas in Germany a few years later, and they said they heard about it. And I was like, Whoa, yeah.

Mark Bridgeman: 25:27

And, you know, and the way things are, you know, the internet, you know, back then as well. I mean, like, news stories travel, yeah, you know. And if they have a tie to Fayetteville, or, you know, I still look at Fayetteville news, even though I don't work there

Tracey Bowman: 25:45

anymore, and I don't know since I don't live there, you know, yeah, still, I still like to know what's going on in my hometown. I wasn't born there, and I was there for 30 years.

Mark Bridgeman: 25:54

So, yeah, well, that's you spend most of your adult life there, you know, like I did, you know, working with the Fayetteville PD, so, Mario McNeil is an interesting fellow. I saw some of the images that he had taken from or that were from his data.on. His phone, from his phone.

Tracey Bowman: 26:13

When we talk about those,

Mark Bridgeman: 26:15

well, you know, this is gonna be on the internet, you know, so you couldn't do like, a PG rated version, PG 13, PG rated.

Tracey Bowman: 26:26

He was, he was has some weird obsession with a dildo and where he put it, and taking photos of with his excrement, though, yeah, there was quite a few photos of that. Yeah, I was just like, he's one sick puppy.

Mark Bridgeman: 26:46

Yeah, he's where he deserves to be at this 100% yes, there's, there's

Tracey Bowman: 26:51

people you know dealing with homicide. You see homicides where you know robberies gone wrong. You know they didn't mean to kill them, and they're easier to catch because they may kill the person, and they just measured them, and so it makes it a lot easier for us to catch

Mark Bridgeman: 27:06

them, yeah, or if it's a drug dealer, you know, I mean,

Tracey Bowman: 27:10

like domestic it's not right, but, you know, heat of passion, kind of but then you have evil you know that there's no reason you should have killed that person. There's no reason you got what you wanted. Why did you need to kill a five year old? Yeah, exactly. There's no reason. And you know, in our 26 years of service, both done. You know Fayetteville, you know you see people who are bad, Oh, of course, drug dealers, you know they're bad, but then you also see the evil. Oh, you look into their eyes, you don't see a soul, yeah?

Mark Bridgeman: 27:50

Well, you actually feel the evil if you're in their presence, yeah, you know. And this is something that's intangible, yeah, you know. But if people have ever experienced that, they'll never forget it. Yeah, you know,

Tracey Bowman: 28:03

that was Mario. Yeah, that's Mario. You don't need to be out of society at all. Yeah? Hopefully they'll

Mark Bridgeman: 28:09

take, you know, it takes a lifetime to kill somebody if they get the death penalty.

Tracey Bowman: 28:13

Well, yeah. I mean, especially when you come on camera. But you know, to me, if he stays who dealt the rest of his wife, meaning that's okay, because he didn't want to stay in jail. You know, he wasn't. He didn't care if he got the death penalty if he didn't get out. And to me, that's just, just punishment. Be in jail somewhere you didn't want

Mark Bridgeman: 28:33

to, especially with the crime he committed. Yeah, you know the urban legend, if not the factual truth, those individuals don't do well in a, you know, general population. The thing is, though, is this, he's not in the population, he's in death. Yeah, that's wrong, yeah, yeah. He's up to central prison, and that's where he's going to stay, yeah, until they determine so let's talk about, you know, some of the challenges that you had during the prosecution you know, or I know, one of the one challenge that we had is the Department of Social Services. I attended a meeting with Chief murder mine at a time Ed grant us the director of the Social Services and myself, and it was a rather interesting conversation. They weren't forthcoming with a lot of the information, and granice had requested the SBI to look into their practices of sharing information. So that was a challenge in and of itself, you know, trying to get those social services records.

Tracey Bowman: 29:45

Yeah, that wasn't a thing that did, you know, detectives. I think it was Pam Rosen that handled most of them, yeah, and they just didn't want to give us information at first, in reference to it, you know, I didn't deal with the majority of that. I. Just told no, because, like I said, it's just too much to know, too much to do. But I was let in on, okay, what's, what's going on with that? And, you know, they didn't want to give the information, but when they finally gave the information, you know, it turns out that, you know, Antoinette and her family was, like, four generations dealing with DSS, at least four generations that I saw, because I went through the records, to me, that's an issue right there. I mean, if you know it's four generations, and there were enough support,

Mark Bridgeman: 30:31

there was red flags that they've determined through the SBI investigation and the Child Fatality Review Board, you know that they determined that there was issues with sharing information between Department of Social Services and law enforcement in general, and they're hopefully, since that time, they've rectified that situation. You know, however, I hate to say that something bad has to happen in order to change to take effect, you know. And if anything happens, you know, because Shania had been reported to social services prior and her brother and her brother, you know, and they were supposed to be making home visits. And were there not that happened. I don't know. I don't recall

Tracey Bowman: 31:22

what, what I was told was. Well, I know from from documentation I saw, I think their last Antoinette and the dad's sister went and spoke with the SS in reference to some issues with with Shania, and they got it on track, or, you know, they were on the same page of what needed to be done, right? So that wasn't believe it was September, but nothing was done. And then I was told that DSS was saying, well, we didn't know where she moved to. Well, I don't believe that the aunt moved so I don't know why they didn't go to her and say, okay, Antoinette's not where she said her previous address was, right? Where is she now? Where? Where is she now? But, like I said, that's something juvenile dealt with more,

Mark Bridgeman: 32:12

yeah, and you know, it's, you know, dealing with social services, you know, it, it's always been a challenge with law enforcement, you know, like, if you like, you being a patrol sergeant. I was patrol sergeant, Lieutenant captain. In the middle of night, you see something that needs to be addressed, and you try to get social services take custody of a kid, you know, good luck. Yeah, you know. I mean, it's, it's unfortunate. I know they're overwhelmed because of the population, you know. You know we're always reluctant to leave a child in that environment, knowing that something bad could happen, you know. And unfortunately, we don't always have a choice, you know. So you know that that was one, one obstacle, you know, that was addressed by Grannis. You know, he found that there was insufficient evidence to support a criminal charge. You know, there was just bad business practices, you know, and sharing information with the people that needed it to so they could effectively address it. Yeah, so what were some of the other challenges you had, some of the other hurdles you had, you know, work in this case, because you lived this case for and you're still living it, you know, Oh, yeah. But you know, when you're in the grind and trying to get information and, you know, putting the pieces together to make a good, solid case. So when you go to prosecution, you go to the DAs office, they have something to work with.

Tracey Bowman: 33:46

It's putting the case together. I mean, that case was over 16,000 pages. That's just what we call the felony folder, right? And I think 6000 around six, I have to look at the numbers. 6000 of it was just the DSS records. So 10,000 reference documentation put in that that itself is hard trying to get into nor because me just trying to go back through it, I was, I was trying to find things, and I'm like, Okay, we're where would I put that? We know. But when you have 10,000 pages of stuff. You're like, you think at the time you're putting it in a good order, where you can find it when you need it, and then you go looking for, you know, 16 years later, and you're like, Okay, what did I put that under? Yeah, I put that somewhere.

Mark Bridgeman: 34:36

It wasn't like, you know, back then we were just starting to do it is create electronic files, and that way you could do, yeah, any keyword search, yeah.

Tracey Bowman: 34:47

But also they were starting a new program where, once we get the file, it's scanned into a program that then sends it to the DAs office. May. Send it to the defense attorney. How that works, but before then, we would have to number the pages. So I had to number 16,000 some odd pages. It took me, I can't, to be honest, I couldn't tell you how long that took me to do that. I was so you can't do it in one setting. It's impossible.

Mark Bridgeman: 35:17

Yeah, that was one of the things that I changed when I was a captain, I thought it was ridiculous to have you guys numbering page by page. So we were able to scan these documents and have

Tracey Bowman: 35:29

it that's another thing that I found out when I was in the pre trial, when I went to the DAs office before the actual trial and went through the case with the the DA and the ADAs. I said, I numbered it. And then I was told, Well, you numbered it wrong, you know, you missed one page. Yeah, go back. But, and I was like, I'm not doing it again. You know, I was already, I still work in homicides. I still had services to do. They had a somebody was on adding and number it. And then again, they said, Nope, he must show they had a third person do it. Well, then when I went over to the DA 's office, we're going over the case. I remember Robbie Hicks, you know, he's like, asking me something. He was this on page, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, so I go through my file and I'm looking on that page. I'm like, this isn't the same as yours, you know. And he's like, shows me his and his, he was showing me the electronic number, right? So after numbering all those pages, when they scanned it in, it gave it a totally different number. And so I went to his page, and he was to say, okay, oh, here it is, right, you're, you know, but that really

Mark Bridgeman: 36:43

just, yeah, when I kind of pitched that change to, you know, the powers that be, even, you know, as a captain, I couldn't just facilitate change, you know, I had to give reasons why. And I said, Look, if they could count dollar bills at a bank. Yeah? You know, we could do this in a felony folder. You know, we don't have to sit there and waste detectives time by stamping one after another. It's, it's archaic, yeah, you know. But, you know, putting a case together like that 16,000 pages, if not more, that's a bear in and of itself, you know. And then on top of that, you're still expected to be on a call. You're still expected to catch homicides, yeah, you know, and go testify for other cases in court. Yes.

Tracey Bowman: 37:33

So we got to the point where it was getting once we're done with the key, once we take out charges, that felony folder is not done within a short period of time because there's still investigations that still need to be done. Yeah, that's when the investigation starts. Yeah, when you start getting into detail. And so it'll take months after the charges. But you know that person deserves, even if they're evil, oh, yes, a timely trial and all that,

Mark Bridgeman: 38:01

and he needs to be have a fair trial. Yeah, you know,

Tracey Bowman: 38:05

so we have to get the felony folder done and send over to the DAs office in a timely manner. So I got to the point where, you know, by that time we had, course, and had retired, I believe me, and my partner, grandma, had gotten another homicide, and I felt bad. And my Serge was like, Well, you're not gonna be the lead on this homicide, you know, Grandma's gonna have to take and I felt bad, because that's just, you know, we usually go him, me, him homicides. And he already had one that was kind of complex, and he had to take the second one. And, you know, Sarge is like, you know, you've got to get this felony folder done. Can't be working another homicide at this point in time, yeah.

Mark Bridgeman: 38:46

And unfortunately, you know, I've worked complex cases too, you know. And you got to get them in, yeah. I mean, like, just no other way around, yeah, you know. Because, you know, they could always request the timely trial. You know, it's a little bit different in the federal system, you know. Or you know, the UCMJ, where they can request trial within, you know, 180 days, you know, well, this case lasted. When did you finally go to trial?

Tracey Bowman: 39:18

2013 March or April. I didn't went to trial.

Mark Bridgeman: 39:23

Did they try them as codefendants? Or did they try separately? No, separately.

Tracey Bowman: 39:28

Marc, first in April, and that took almost two months, and I went over there in January to start the pre trial, you know, going over the case with their days, yeah, being there if they had any questions.

Mark Bridgeman: 39:44

And then how was his demeanor like in court when he was in trial?

Tracey Bowman: 39:47

Yeah, oh, he was so arrogant. It was just well, he was his attorney, and then the DAs office, both were were authorized to get a psychologist in my psychiatrist. Chest talk to him and left us to his mental state to make sure he's mentally capable, which he is. He's just evil. And all four of them basically said that he was a narcissist. And I'm like, Marc, I told you that, and I'm not even

Mark Bridgeman: 40:15

gonna down there for free. Yeah, you know

Tracey Bowman: 40:18

that's just to me, that this the epitome of evil. You know, you just care about yourself. You don't care about anybody else. You don't know, it's just you,

Mark Bridgeman: 40:25

me, me, me, me, me. So the trial took close to two months, I believe. Yeah, okay, and who is the lead prosecutor on that?

Tracey Bowman: 40:36

Well, Billy West was, was the lead prosecutor?

Mark Bridgeman: 40:39

Was he a DA at the time,

Tracey Bowman: 40:40

yeah, he was the DA and that's, you know, why he was the lead he was a high profile case. Yeah, he should be the lead prosecutor, right? The ones that I dealt with, mainly during the pre trial, though, was Robbie Hicks, who's highly who's awesome, oh, yeah, very talented. He's a judge. Yeah, I was like, good. He's, he'll be a good, fair judge. And then Rita Cox,

Mark Bridgeman: 41:04

yeah, yeah. Rita was good. I've always had a good rapport with both of those prosecutors from trying cases as well. So once the defense rested, prosecution rested, went to the jury, yeah. How long did it take the jurors to come back? I think it was like 34 months. Yeah, I did some research, and, you know, they said 40 minutes.

Tracey Bowman: 41:30

I think when I wrote it down, it felt

Mark Bridgeman: 41:33

to me, but that's in and out of the jury room. And, you know, charging that, you know, the jury and stuff. So, you know, they didn't take long to render verdict.

Tracey Bowman: 41:46

Yeah, it was just too obvious. It was just too obvious.

Unknown: 41:49

Next time on behind the thin blue line, what

Mark Bridgeman: 41:52

kind of advice can you give a young officer or a young detective they're gonna see stuff they've never thought they would see in their life? You're not Superman.

Tracey Bowman: 42:01

You need help whoever wants to help you, let them help you, especially to solve the case. In reference to mental health, find somebody to talk to you need to talk it out. Otherwise you put it in that box and it stays there until it gets too full and it explodes.

Buzz Burbank: 42:22

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