TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - Robert Bowman told the court he is not remorseful after he was convicted Friday of murdering 14-year-old Eileen Adams in 1967.
Eileen's family and friends were in the court room for the announcement and after 40 years of waiting, the tension was almost unbearable.
"My stomach was churning. My mind was almost blank. My heart was doing flips," said Al Adams, Eileen's brother.
Adams was 19 years old at the time of Eileen's murder.
Prosecutors said in court Robert Bowman not only kidnapped Eileen as she was walking home from school, but raped her, held her captive, killed her and threw her out like trash.
Bowman's ex-wife testified that she found Adams tied up in the storage room of her basement and that is when Bowman killed her, drove a nail into the back of her head and dumped her body in a Michigan field.
The 75-year-old man will now spend the rest of his life behind bars, but he did not seem concerned with this prospect.
"If I spend the remainder of my life in the penitentiary, it'd be no different that the three years I've done in the monkey house here. I'll adjust to that," said Bowman.
He showed no remorse in the court room when Judge Gene Zmuda, of the Lucas County Common Pleas Court read his sentence.
"I am not responsible. I have no remorse. I have no reason to have remorse," said Bowman.
According to Zmuda, the parole board can contact the governor after ten years if it chooses to determine if bowman is then eligible for parole.
His attorney told the court that he will be filing an appeal.
Pete Navarre, the original detective who saw Eileen's body in 1967 and tracked Bowman down in 1982, was in the court room for Bowman's conviction and became very emotional when he heard the news of Bowman's conviction.
For the last 40 years this case became Navarre's obsession. He didn't know Eileen for the first 14 years of her life, but Navarre has been haunted for the last 43 years since her death
Navarre was an officer with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office when he found Eileen's body wrapped in a carpet in a Michigan field.
"I saw what I learned to be a very innocent little girl who must have gone through a horrible, horrible time and a horrible death," said Navarre.
For 13 years, leads lead to nothing until Bowman's ex-wife came forward in 1981 naming Bowman as the killer.
Navarre went with Toledo police down to Florida to track down Bowman who was living in a burnt out restaurant. Police found dolls in bowman's bedroom that had nails driven into their heads.
But was not until 2008 that DNA evidence finally led to Bowman's arrest and trial which ended in a hung jury.
After the verdict, Eileen's family broke their silence for the very first and only time after they said they made a promise to their deceased parents never to talk about the case or sell their story.
Eileen's sister spoke to the court for 20 minutes during the sentencing. She described how Eileen's murder nearly destroyed her family - her parents never allowed the rest of their kids to go anywhere but school and they were not allowed to talk about Eileen.
Now that Bowman is behind bars and the case is closed, the family said it is time to move on. They plan to start by burying Eileen who was exhumed due to the case.
For the last 40 years, Eileen's loved ones had to wait until the case had a suspect, and then they waited again until DNA evidence led to Bowman's arrest.
At trial they had to listen to Robert Bowman's ramblings on the stand, and listen how he said he had no remorse in Eileen's murder.
Eileen's brother Al Adams spoke only to thank those who made this day possible.
"The courts, Judge Zmuda, definitely the jury," said Adams, "they did their jobs bringing Bowman to [justice]."
