When we left you last night, the family and friends of Denfield Bowen were waiting for police to release his decomposed remains so that they could take him for burial in Manatee. It was an emotional moment - after three weeks of searching - and with so many misgivings about the circumstances of his murder - that it had supposedly been done by one of his George Street Gang allies….all that made for a volatile scene at mile 8 on the Western Highway. Monica Bodden was there and here's what she saw:..
Monica Bodden reporting
The news quickly spread like wildfire - when word got out that a decomposed body had been found at a mile 8 community off the Western Highway.
Family members and friends of 26 year old Denfield Bowen arrived on the scene one by one - All anxiously waiting to see if it was indeed the body of the missing Plues Street resident.
But it took a while before police allowed Bowen's father into the scene to identify his belongings. Shortly after he returned to the crowd to break the news that it was the missing man.
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"When we came out here we couldn't go at the back there. It's his mother and his father said that it's his body. I don't know what to say, because it really hurts badly."
Monica Bodden
"You haven't had a chance to see the scene as yet right?"
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"No. They don't want us to go back there yet, until they are finish."
Monica Bodden
"How long has "LL" been missing?"
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"From the 30th April. Today, makes three weeks since he's been missing."
Monica Bodden
"And since then the family has been searches I understand on your own."
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"Yes. We stop searching about last week Wednesday, because we go everywhere and can't find this red pick-up, this body. So, we just gave us a little while. We asked the police who always comes and harass us on Plues Street, to come and help us and no one assisted us."
The decomposed body of Bowen was found in the back of his red pick-up truck- wrapped up in a tarp - The truck was parked in the yard of an abandon house - located through a picado road.
My cameraman managed to get an overhead view of the crime scene - which was roughly about 400 yards away from where we were allowed.
On the scene, Claudine Dawson was one of the first to arrive. She is Bowen's common-law-wife and the mother of his 5 children.
According to Dawson her husband went missing exactly 3 weeks ago after he left home to go visit a friend - a friend known to be a notorious street figure.
Monica Bodden
"That day if you could remember when he left, you knew where he was going? Did he say anything when he left home? Did you communicate after that?"
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"Him and I were in the shop on Thursday about 5:05 pm and he made a call and he said 'B, are you about? I am coming' and he stand up at the shop door and he watched me and when he went to the pick-up, he told the babies to come out. He watched me and he shook his head. From he went - he took off and I watched my watch and it was 20 pass 5pm and so I went upstairs about going to 7pm, because I ask how he hasn't come yet? That is not him. I went to take a bath and I ask his friend about his other phone that he had. He thought that he (the friend) called him. After 7pm I got mad and I called him from his father phone and no answer. Only voicemail I got. After 10pm we got a call saying that he went to Brown house - right at "Fawda" house and he didn't come back. So went we got the call, we went at all the police station, check and no one was there. We call the hospital and they told us that they might have him there in Intensive Care. When we went there on the Friday, there was no one there such as that name. When we went to "Fawda" he says that my husband didn't reach there. But we know that he had reached at his yard."
And as the sunset yesterday evening, the body of 26 year old Denfield Bowen was handed over to his family by police -so that he could be laid to rest immediately after.
It was placed in the back of a hearse - and driven through the emotional crowd. His red pickup truck was towed away by police for investigation purposes. For Bowen's family, this is the closure they have been hoping for.
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"It's a closure because every day my babies and I wanted to know how he hasn't come home, but we already knew what had happened. But we really wanted him to come home alive, but we have to accept that in life, that he is dead. So, really now, we found his body, so the babies could really see and know that their father will not be coming home again."
Monica Bodden
"How many kids has he left behind?"
Claudine Dawson - Common-Law-Wife of Denfield Bowen
"He have 4 babies and one on the way."
No cause of death could be determined due to the advanced state of decomposition.
Bowen was the father of four. And while police aren't talking about suspects, on the streets, the prevailing narrative is that he was killed by one of his own.
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