'There's no magic DNA bullet'

Bradley murder investigation could go before grand jury

By GIL BRADY
Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 4.01.07

JACKSON -- The six-month investigation into the slaying of snowboarder Benjamin “Ben” Bradley could go before a grand jury regardless of the findings of clues gathered from his remains, Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Lt. Bob Myzel indicated this week.

"At this point there’s no magic DNA bullet,” Myzel said when asked whether blood evidence seized from one-time suspect Tommy Bowman’s apartment had proved conclusive.

The lieutenant added that pending analysis by the state’s crime lab of evidence collected from Bradley’s body, clothes and other sources could shed new light on how the well-traveled adventurer died.

Last spring, after hitchhiking over half of the 485-mile journey between his Tabernash, Colo., summer home and his Jackson get-a-way, Bradley vanished outside Rock Springs, two days before his 29th birthday on June 4.

On Oct. 1, nearly four months later, tourists discovered Bradley’s mummified remains beside a Red Desert volcano core known as Boar’s Tusk. Missing among Bradley’s few possessions were his prized snowboard and sturdy backpack.

Friends say Bradley rented a room in Jackson and loved to spend his winters “carving snow” in the mountains. On June 2, 2006, Jesse Meunier says, Bradley left a cell phone message around 9 p.m. asking if someone could drive to Pinedale, about two hours north of Rock Springs, to pick him up.

“We were heading for a party in Kelly,” Meunier said recently. “But I told him: ‘Just give us a call back, and we’ll see if someone can come get you.’ But he never called back.”

After Bradley failed to make his scheduled birthday bash of snowboarding in the Tetons, his friends became suspicious and drove from Jackson to Rock Springs, hanging missing-person posters of Bradley along U.S. Highway 191.

Witnesses later reported spotting the 6-foot-3 Bradley in the Rock Springs area toting a snowboard and flashing a sign that read, “Jackson.” According to the National Center for Missing Adults’ Web site, a man matching Bradley’s description was seen running across a parking lot toward Highway 191 “as if he was getting a ride.”

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

Photo Captions & Credits: 1) "Ben Bradley about 1 month before he vanished on June 2, 2006," courtesy of S.W.C.S.O.; 2) Detail of Bradley's one-of-a-kind, "Never Summer" snowboard" courtesy of official sources; 3) "Former prime murder suspect Tommy Bowman, last November," courtesy of FOX-TV

CLICK HERE-----> for Exclusive interview w/Tommy Bowman 'I didn't do this.'

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