RedWhiteBlue
09-26-2007, 05:28 PM
Remember this- few years back at Bangs???? Can you imagine showing an electrician around your house and then.... whoops, sorry- have to move the dead bodies out of the way to get to the wiring!!!!!
Mystery of babies solved?
Mummified remains of 3 infants found in Bangs in 2003
By Celinda Emison (Contact)
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BANGS -- Almost four years ago, as she was showing an electrician hired to help renovate her home the location of some wiring, Deena Roberts noticed a door she wasn't aware of behind an upstairs crawl space.
After opening that door, she made a macabre discovery: the mummified bodies of three babies, wrapped in towels and sheets and stored in a plastic trash bag.
DNA evidence shows that the babies were likely the children of the couple who built the home several years before Deena and Stephen Roberts bought it. But that couple has died. And investigators report the couple's surviving daughters say they are shocked that their parents apparently hid the bodies of their three siblings a boy and two whose gender cannot be determined -- for 40 years.
The only clue: a blood disorder that in the middle part of the 20th century sometimes proved fatal.
Officially, the case of the Bangs babies remains open. Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs said investigators have found no evidence of foul play, and he does not expect to see criminal charges filed.
But investigators who worked on the case lack concrete answers for how those babies died, how they got into the crawl space, and why they did not receive a proper burial.
The mystery was unveiled on Oct. 23, 2003, about three years after Deena and Stephen Roberts bought an A-frame style home off of County Road 153 east of Bangs.
The home was built in 1987 by James and Doris Bowling. Records at the Brown County Courthouse show that James Bowling, a licensed electrician who at various times worked in oil fields and ran a convenience store, built the A-frame style home himself.
The Robertses, who were never suspects in the case, were preparing to do work on two bedrooms in the upstairs portion of their home. As Deena showed an electrician around the home, she discovered the door and found the plastic bag. She looked inside and saw a hand.
So she and her husband immediately contacted the Brown County Sheriff's Department. Stephen Roberts told officers that he thought they had discovered the remains of a dead baby.
One of the first law enforcement officials on the scene was Mike McCoy, then serving as chief deputy for the sheriff's office. McCoy recalls pulling a paper sack from inside the plastic bag. Inside the sack, he found a tiny, leather-like baby.
"It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen," McCoy said.
He immediately contacted Texas Ranger Nick Hanna, who had been assigned to Brown County earlier that year. Hanna and McCoy, along with Scott Martin, who was a Brown County sheriff's detective at the time, set out to crack one of the most bizarre cases any of them had ever worked.
"At the time, we had no idea what the deal was -- we didn't know if someone had been snatching children or what," McCoy said.
The baby's body was sent to the Travis County Medical Examiner's office so that doctors could at least attempt to find a cause and time of death. X-rays of the bundles inside the plastic bag revealed two more babies' bodies were wrapped up tight. Martin said investigators initially thought the bag merely contained more wadded up sheets and towels.
Dr. Robert Bayardo determined that the mummified remains were between 30 and 40 years old.
The next step would be finding out to whom the babies belonged. Investigators sent the bodies to the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center Forensic Anthropology lab in Denton. The babies' bodies remain there as evidence.
Investigators developed a theory early on: that the babies belonged to the Bowlings, who moved to Brown County after James Bowling worked in West Texas oil fields for many years.
The Bowlings were private people. Not many people in Bangs remembered them. James died in 1999, and Doris died in 2000.
Hanna said a wedding gift card addressed to the Bowlings, dated 1959, was found with the babies.
"This is an affirmative link to the period of time the babies were born," Hanna said Friday.
The investigation led detectives to the three children of the Bowlings -- daughters Tracy Ann Robb, 40, of San Angelo and Constance Martaindale, 49, of Texarkana, and one son, Eddie Bowling, whose last known address was Corpus Christi.
Attempts by the Reporter-News to contact Robb and Martaindale were unsuccessful.
Hanna, McCoy and Martin have not found Eddie Bowling, but they received DNA samples from Robb and Martaindale at the end of 2004. Forensic pathologists determined the babies are the siblings of the two women.
"When we contacted the sisters they were in disbelief," McCoy said. "They knew nothing about the babies at all."
Robb told investigators the crawl space where the babies were found was where she used to put her dolls. So whoever put the plastic bag in the crawl space, Martin said, likely did it after the Bowlings' youngest daughter moved out.
"It is very clear to us they (the Bowlings' surviving daughters) had no idea the bag was up there," Martin said.
Both sisters passed a polygraph test.
"They had no prior knowledge of the babies," Hanna said.
Investigators have never been able to find Eddie Bowling, so the investigation has not been officially cleared.
Martin said Martaindale told him that her mother had Rh negative blood -- a genetic anomaly that, essentially, means a pregnant mother and her unborn child with Rh positive blood have incompatible blood types. With treatment, most babies are born without complications.
But decades ago, it was more common for mothers to lose their children to miscarriage if mother and child had incompatible blood.
Martin said that Martaindale recalled hearing her mother talk about having a miscarriage years ago.
"And every time she talked to her dad, he would say 'I'm sorry for giving you bad blood,'" Martin said.
As the pieces of the puzzle came together investigators began to speculate that the Bowlings may have lost the children to disease or illness. But the causes of death were never determined, and it remains a mystery why they apparently kept the bodies instead of burying their children.
"Given the circumstances I can understand the guilt," Martin said. "But that is going to be a question that is never answered."
Mystery of babies solved?
Mummified remains of 3 infants found in Bangs in 2003
By Celinda Emison (Contact)
Saturday, September 22, 2007
BANGS -- Almost four years ago, as she was showing an electrician hired to help renovate her home the location of some wiring, Deena Roberts noticed a door she wasn't aware of behind an upstairs crawl space.
After opening that door, she made a macabre discovery: the mummified bodies of three babies, wrapped in towels and sheets and stored in a plastic trash bag.
DNA evidence shows that the babies were likely the children of the couple who built the home several years before Deena and Stephen Roberts bought it. But that couple has died. And investigators report the couple's surviving daughters say they are shocked that their parents apparently hid the bodies of their three siblings a boy and two whose gender cannot be determined -- for 40 years.
The only clue: a blood disorder that in the middle part of the 20th century sometimes proved fatal.
Officially, the case of the Bangs babies remains open. Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs said investigators have found no evidence of foul play, and he does not expect to see criminal charges filed.
But investigators who worked on the case lack concrete answers for how those babies died, how they got into the crawl space, and why they did not receive a proper burial.
The mystery was unveiled on Oct. 23, 2003, about three years after Deena and Stephen Roberts bought an A-frame style home off of County Road 153 east of Bangs.
The home was built in 1987 by James and Doris Bowling. Records at the Brown County Courthouse show that James Bowling, a licensed electrician who at various times worked in oil fields and ran a convenience store, built the A-frame style home himself.
The Robertses, who were never suspects in the case, were preparing to do work on two bedrooms in the upstairs portion of their home. As Deena showed an electrician around the home, she discovered the door and found the plastic bag. She looked inside and saw a hand.
So she and her husband immediately contacted the Brown County Sheriff's Department. Stephen Roberts told officers that he thought they had discovered the remains of a dead baby.
One of the first law enforcement officials on the scene was Mike McCoy, then serving as chief deputy for the sheriff's office. McCoy recalls pulling a paper sack from inside the plastic bag. Inside the sack, he found a tiny, leather-like baby.
"It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen," McCoy said.
He immediately contacted Texas Ranger Nick Hanna, who had been assigned to Brown County earlier that year. Hanna and McCoy, along with Scott Martin, who was a Brown County sheriff's detective at the time, set out to crack one of the most bizarre cases any of them had ever worked.
"At the time, we had no idea what the deal was -- we didn't know if someone had been snatching children or what," McCoy said.
The baby's body was sent to the Travis County Medical Examiner's office so that doctors could at least attempt to find a cause and time of death. X-rays of the bundles inside the plastic bag revealed two more babies' bodies were wrapped up tight. Martin said investigators initially thought the bag merely contained more wadded up sheets and towels.
Dr. Robert Bayardo determined that the mummified remains were between 30 and 40 years old.
The next step would be finding out to whom the babies belonged. Investigators sent the bodies to the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center Forensic Anthropology lab in Denton. The babies' bodies remain there as evidence.
Investigators developed a theory early on: that the babies belonged to the Bowlings, who moved to Brown County after James Bowling worked in West Texas oil fields for many years.
The Bowlings were private people. Not many people in Bangs remembered them. James died in 1999, and Doris died in 2000.
Hanna said a wedding gift card addressed to the Bowlings, dated 1959, was found with the babies.
"This is an affirmative link to the period of time the babies were born," Hanna said Friday.
The investigation led detectives to the three children of the Bowlings -- daughters Tracy Ann Robb, 40, of San Angelo and Constance Martaindale, 49, of Texarkana, and one son, Eddie Bowling, whose last known address was Corpus Christi.
Attempts by the Reporter-News to contact Robb and Martaindale were unsuccessful.
Hanna, McCoy and Martin have not found Eddie Bowling, but they received DNA samples from Robb and Martaindale at the end of 2004. Forensic pathologists determined the babies are the siblings of the two women.
"When we contacted the sisters they were in disbelief," McCoy said. "They knew nothing about the babies at all."
Robb told investigators the crawl space where the babies were found was where she used to put her dolls. So whoever put the plastic bag in the crawl space, Martin said, likely did it after the Bowlings' youngest daughter moved out.
"It is very clear to us they (the Bowlings' surviving daughters) had no idea the bag was up there," Martin said.
Both sisters passed a polygraph test.
"They had no prior knowledge of the babies," Hanna said.
Investigators have never been able to find Eddie Bowling, so the investigation has not been officially cleared.
Martin said Martaindale told him that her mother had Rh negative blood -- a genetic anomaly that, essentially, means a pregnant mother and her unborn child with Rh positive blood have incompatible blood types. With treatment, most babies are born without complications.
But decades ago, it was more common for mothers to lose their children to miscarriage if mother and child had incompatible blood.
Martin said that Martaindale recalled hearing her mother talk about having a miscarriage years ago.
"And every time she talked to her dad, he would say 'I'm sorry for giving you bad blood,'" Martin said.
As the pieces of the puzzle came together investigators began to speculate that the Bowlings may have lost the children to disease or illness. But the causes of death were never determined, and it remains a mystery why they apparently kept the bodies instead of burying their children.
"Given the circumstances I can understand the guilt," Martin said. "But that is going to be a question that is never answered."