'I so didn't do this': How one Man says he became a Murder Suspect

By GIL BRADY
Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 11.19.06

A former cafe manager and spa technician who says he turned in a stray backpack to authorities in September has professed his innocence in the murder of its owner, Colorado snowboarder and hitchhiker Benjamin “Ben” Bradley.

“I’m totally, totally innocent. I so didn’t do this,” Tommy Bowman, 35, of Rock Springs, said in a phone interview last week.

His voice cracking, Bowman recalled how after he turned in the backpack, nearly four months after finding it, investigators grilled him repeatedly about Bradley’s mysterious death. They also executed warrants to seize Bowman's DNA, some of his possessions and biological matter from his apartment.

Copies of warrants obtained from Bowman show that in early October authorities seized more than 20 items from him. They included a 1981 Ford SUV, a shirt with "multiple cuts," a Swiss Army knife, paraphernalia with “suspected marijuana residue," and towels and sections of a mattress, box spring and carpet with "suspected blood."

Bowman said he told investigators he let a friend stay at his apartment while he was out of town this summer. The friend, Bowman said, allowed a bloody man who had been in a fight to sleep on his couch.

Asked if he knew who killed Ben Bradley, Bowman, who has not been charged in the six-week-old homicide investigation, said: “No, no, no. See, this is the problem.”

Early in June, while jet-skiing in Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area -- about 70 miles from where Bradley's body was eventually discovered -- Bowman said he found a backpack beside the cliffs, across from a beach, and stored it in his car, taking some items from it on a trip to California.

Inside the backpack Bowman said he found a water purifier, snowboard booties, some hashish and marijuana; a title to Bradley’s car in Jackson; and another item that would, ironically, prove invaluable.

At the time Bowman found the backpack, Bradley had only been reported missing after making a phone call from Rock Springs to friends in Jackson at 8:58 p.m. on June 2.

(Click & Read on courtsey of the Casper Star-Tribune)

Photo Captions & Credits: 1) "Ben Bradley's break-away, one-of-a kind snowboard;" 2) "A detail from Bradley's 'board;" 3) "Western Wyo.'s Red Desert at Boar's Tusk, about 25 miles north of Rock Springs, Wyo." 4) "Benjamin 'Ben' Bradley, about 1 month before he vanished last June 2," courtsey of official sources & on-line stock.

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