CLAYTON – Jurors recommended Friday that Gregory Bowman be executed for the murder of Velda Joy Rumfelt, despite his insistence in testimony earlier in the day that he never killed anyone.

The St. Louis County jury that convicted him Thursday night of capital murder did not learn until the penalty hearing that Bowman, 58, awaits trial in two similar murders at Belleville, and has two convictions for abducting young women besides. The jury found he had committed all those crimes and another abduction and cited those crimes as factors in recommending death.

Bowman showed little reaction to the verdict. Defense attorney Steve Evans said he was disappointed, but "obviously, with the past record ... it was going to be an uphill battle" to persuade the jury to recommend life in prison instead of the death penalty.

St. Louis prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch said Bowman was a serial killer who deserved to die for his crimes.

"If this guy ever hit the streets again, he’d do it again," McCulloch said Friday night. "No doubt about it."

Rumfelt’s family members declined to comment Friday

Earlier Friday, in what is believed to be the only time he has testified in five trials over almost 40 years, Bowman offered no apology or explanation for his crimes. He did not testify in the guilt phase of the trial.

"With all respect to the jury," he said, "I did not kill those girls."

Bowman did admit kidnapping three women at knifepoint in the 1970s — one each at Belleville and Danville, Ill., for which he was convicted, and one at Flora, Ill., for which he was never prosecuted. But he denied any sexual assault on them, even though two said they dissuaded him from rape only after he forced them to disrobe and began sexually assaulting them. All three tearfully testified Thursday night.

Prosecutor Joe Dueker asked Bowman what he had planned to do with the 30-year-old woman who escaped after he took her from a Belleville laundromat in 1978.

"Actually, nothing," Bowman, replied, as spectators in Judge David Lee Vincent III’s courtroom scoffed aloud.

Said Dueker: "He’s shown absolutely, positively no remorse. Not one ounce of remorse for those girls and the torture they went through."

Evans reminded the jury of seven women and five men that a sentence of life in prison also would mean that Bowman would die in jail.

"He’s behind bars and he’s not a threat to anyone," Evans said.

Rumfelt, 16, of Kansas City, disappeared June 5, 1977, on a visit to family and friends in the Brentwood area. She was found strangled, with her throat slashed.

The laundromat kidnapping put attention on Bowman for the 1978 murders of Elizabeth West, 14, and Ruth Ann Jany, 21, who disappeared off the streets of Belleville. He admitted the crimes to a fellow jail inmate and agreed not to contest murder charges in a bench trial if prosecutors waived a death sentence.

Years after Bowman went to prison, a Post-Dispatch investigation showed that an investigator had tricked him into believing he might benefit from admitting the killings regardless of whether he committed them. His convictions were reversed by an appellate court, the charges were re-filed and, in 2007, he was freed on bond for about a week.

Police pressed to link him to other crimes, and quickly found that his DNA matched a semen stain in Rumfelt’s underwear. Nothing else had connected them. His conviction Thursday in her murder rested on an expert’s testimony that the chances were no greater than one in 459 trillion that the DNA could be anyone else’s.

In Friday’s testimony, Bowman said he admitted the West and Jany killings to delay his transfer to prison and thus enhance his chances of escaping from the St. Clair County Jail.

"I was rather young and dumb," he said.

McCulloch criticized the Post-Dispatch’s role, saying "shoddy and dishonest reporting" resulted in a dangerous man being freed.

Post-Dispatch editor Arnie Robbins defended the paper’s work.

"Post-Dispatch reporting exposed a problem with the Bowman murder prosecutions in Belleville, but it was the court system of Illinois — not the newspaper, of course — that decided the issue was significant enough to overturn the convictions," Robbins said.

Prosecutors said they were glad Bowman testified, saying the jury saw through him.

"He lied about everything up there," McCulloch said. "The jury got a feel for this guy."

Defense attorney Evans said: "We felt it was important to show the jury he’s a human. I thought he did quite well."

Bowman still faces murder charges in the deaths of West and Jany in Illinois. St. Clair County State’s Attorney Robert Haida said he plans to talk with family members and decide from there what to do next in those murder cases.

Haida called the jury’s recommendation of death for Bowman an "appropriate and deserved verdict." He commended his St. Louis County counterparts for their dedication and for working with his office.

Bowman is set to be formally sentenced by Vincent on Dec. 11.



Greg Jonsson and Nicholas J.C. Pistor of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.