Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 16

Jul 17 2007 B-2 PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2007 WWW.P0ST-GAZETTE.COM LOCAL STATE Woman abducted in Atlanta; family stages vigil in her name Dad alters 3lea in '05 ddnapping, is released from prison KIDNAP, FROM PAGE B-l mm k1 Monica Bowie Jasper Keels VIGIL, FROM PAGE B-l "We are trying to see whether he has any connection to the kidnapping, but at this time we have not been able to make that link," DeKalb County police spokeswoman Keisha Williams said. "He's not a suspect. Are we trying to connect him? Yes. But he's not a suspect." Investigators found fingernails at the scene, Ms. Williams said, and analysts are testing them to see if they came from Ms.

Bowie during a struggle with her attacker. Ms. Bowie ran a clothing boutique and a company promoting hip-hop music artists. She is one of four siblings who grew up in the Spring Hill section of the North Side. Ms.

Bowie attended Perry Traditional Academy, where she was on the drill team, and graduated from Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in 1996. In Atlanta, Ms. Bowie worked for a time as a stripper. Brenda Watkins, manager of the Blue Flame, recalled that Ms. Bowie danced under the stage name "Honey" off and on during 2006.

"She was a nice girl, real nice, real quiet, kept to herself, very ambitious," Ms. Watkins said. "I don't know if she was a stripper making money to invest in another business or not. She would come in the club periodically and pass out new music from new artists." Mrs. Howard, who spent the past week in Atlanta, where she spoke with investigators, neighbors and friends of her daughter, last saw Monica in June when she returned to Pittsburgh for the college graduation of her sister.

But it was also during June that Ms. Bowie ran afoul of the law in Atlanta. Police arrested her fiance, Shernotta Walters, after finding a handgun and 2.89 ounces of marijuana in the car he was driving. That car belonged to Ms. Bowie.

A police report said Mr. Walters denied owning the gun or the dope. Ms. Bowie did the and when Daniel was born in May 2000, put his name on the birth certificate, making him the legal father and granting him parental rights. When Ms.

Koutina and Mr. Pearsall separated three years later, he filed a motion to take primary custody of Daniel. After a series of legal maneuvers, he was granted visitation rights every other weekend. After Mr. Pearsall disappeared with his son that August weekend in 2005, Ms.

Koutina notified Pittsburgh police, and they found his Harmony home vacant and abandoned. Federal charges of international parental kidnapping were filed in early December 2005. That same month, FBI agents linked a truck with Pennsylvania plates that had been seen in Cancun to the Ellwood City car dealership of Mr. Pearsall's father. On Dec.

21, 2005, Mr. Pearsall was seen in Cancun with his son. He was arrested that day and flown back to the United States, where he was taken into custody and Daniel was reunited with his mother. Mr. Pearsall was released on bond in January 2006.

That bond was revoked in October 2006, after he had unauthorized contact with a potential witness in the case, and he was returned to jail. With his release yesterday, Mr. Pearsall was returned to the terms he was following last year before he was sent back to jail: a curfew, travel limited to Western Pennsylvania and a $10,000 unsecured bond. Michael Birnbaum can be reached at or 412-263-2533. i Left: Melissa Howard is comforted by her father during the vigil.

WTOWWITHINFO DEKALB COUNTY PiiilCF Annie O'NeillPost-Gazette the hearing, his attorney, Dennis Scheib, said. A spokeswoman for the Fulton County district attorney yesterday said, however, that an investigating grand jury handed up indictments against both on July 10. The charges against Ms. Bowie are possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a license. Mr.

Walters, who was on parole from a drug case at the time of his arrest, remains in the Fulton County Jail. Mr. Scheib said he was with Ms. Bowie on the day of her abduction and said she seemed fine, speaking of plans to marry his client and have a child. "He said he doesn't know anything about it," Mr.

Scheib said of Mr. Walters. "Why would cause of her own," Mr. Griggs said. Mr.

Griggs said Ms. Bowie worked as a stripper for about six weeks, around 2000 or 2001, in order to make ends meet before going into business. Her ventures into clothing and promotions, he said, were the "joy of her life." As investigators work to find Ms. Bowie, they are tracking down information on the hours leading up to her disappearance. Ms.

Williams said police did not know whether she was going out or coming in that evening. Mrs. Howard said she has come to terms with what has happened in her daughter's life. She only wants her back. "Monica was a strong she is a very strong young lady," she told those gathered at the vigil.

"She had a strong background. She was raised properly. She has a very strong family." Dan Majors contributed to this report. Jonathan D. Silver can be reached or 412-263-1962.

he want to hurt her? She's his witness. She's the only way he's getting out of this." Mr. Griggs said he was unaware of the indictment against Ms. Bowie until informed of it by a reporter. "That's a surprise to me," Mr.

Griggs said. "At this point our contention would be that the police have no evidence whatsoever linking my client to possession of any illegal substance. She was not the driver of that car, she was not in control of that car." Mr. Griggs said Ms. Bowie did indeed carry a handgun but in her other car, and legally, with a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

He said she had a gun for protection, but not against any specific or recent threat. "From everyone involved, Monica was a nice, happy, upstanding member of the Atlanta community. She owned several businesses here which were doing well. She had no problems besides the unfortunate brush with the law, which was brought about through no same, but both were arrested. Police dropped the charges against Ms.

Bowie, according to her attorney, Gerald A. Griggs. And a magistrate dismissed the charges against Mr. Walters when police did not show up for NORTH Rush hour, not slide, slows Route 28 traffic The closing of a southbound lane of Route 28 from a late Friday night landslide isn't significantly affecting traffic, according to Jim Struzzi of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. It extends by a half mile a previous lane closure that starts at Pittsburgh Mills.

Delays yesterday morning in that area were part of regular rush-hour traffic, Mr. Struzzi said, and not related to the landslide closure. EAST Man pleads guilty in triple fatal crash A man accused of driving drunk in the wrong direction and hitting a van, killing three members of a Canadian family on vacation, pleaded guilty yesterday to vehicular homicide. As part of a plea agreement, Jeremy A. Grimes, 24, of Bedford, will receive a minimum eight-year prison term when he is sentenced Oct.

11, authorities said. Mr. Grimes pleaded guilty to two counts of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence and one count each of vehicular homicide and drunken driving. "He acknowledges with much regret that he devastated a family," said Mr. Grimes' attorney, Tony Zanoni.

"He was just a kid who made a wrong choice that so many people make." Roger Herve St-Denis, 52, Angela Michelle St-Denis, 15, and Paul Francois St-Denis, 21, all of Pickering, Ontario, were pronounced dead at the scene of the Dec. 23 head-on crash on Interstate 99 in East St. Clair Township, police said. Two other family members were treated at local hospitals. Mr.

Grimes' blood-alcohol level was 0.21, more than twice the legal limit, police said. Mr. Zanoni said his client had been drinking at a Bedford bar and cannot remember the crash or how he came to be driving in the wrong direction. "Three days later, he woke up on his mom's couch and she told him what happened," Mr. Zanoni said.

Relatives of the victims were satisfied with the plea deal, District Attorney William Higgins said. ALLEGHENY COUNTY U.S. will pay $800,000 for sewer planning Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Philadelphia, announced yesterday in Pittsburgh that the federal government will chip in $800,000 to help pay for feasibility studies and regional planning required by a federal mandate to upgrade sewer systems in Allegheny County by 2026. The senator earmarked the money in the Interior appropriations bill for 3 Rivers Wet Weather, a nonprofit organization formed to work on innovative, regional, cost-effective approaches to significantly reduce the sewage overflows into area rivers and creeks every time it rains.

More than 400 sanitary and combined sewer overflow pipes in the county dump an estimated 16 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water into the rivers each year. The repairs will cost the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority an estimated $1 billion and its 83 member municipalities another $2 billion. John Schombert, 3 Rivers Wet Weather executive director, said regional approaches to flow monitoring and mapping of sewer lines have already saved municipalities millions of dollars, and the new federal money will help implement similar coordinated development of a regional feasibility and flow control plan. Since 1999, Mr. Specter has helped secure funding totaling $23 million for various parts of the planning for sewer system improvements in the county.

CFTY boy" organizes Sudan school fund-raiser Aluong Garang, one of the "lost boys" of Sudan who resettled in Pittsburgh in 2001, has organized a fund-raiser for Saturday to help build a school in his homeland. As a 9-year-old, Mr. Garang survived a thousand-mile trek dodging soldiers and wild animals, and then spent almost nine years in a refugee camp. Now a student at Community College of Allegheny County, he helped form a nonprofit foundation to build a school in his village of Duk in southern Sudan. The Fair Trade Sale will offer crafts from Africa, Asia and Latin America at St.

Valentine's Church in Bethel Park, in addition to T-shirts bearing the logo "Lost Boys' School." The church is located at 2730 Ohio St. For more information call 412-831-5308. Now Open For Business! Attorney: Collar-bombing suspect won't appear for arraignment mir 1 ii Mon-Tues-Thur HAU.I1DM Route 68 in Butler, Across from the Butler Farm Show 724-431-0360 Wed-Fri-Sat 9 AM -5 PM By The Associated Press ERIE A woman accused in a bank robbery that ended with a pizza deliveryman being killed by a bomb locked around his neck will not appear in court for her arraignment today because of concerns about her mental condition, her attorney said. Thomas Patton, an assistant federal public defender, said Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong is manic and cannot remain silent unless medicated. He said he fears she would talk too much during a nearly five-hour trip from Muncy, where she is an Drawings for Monday, July 16, 2007 LOTTERY RESULTS Results over the web? PA-OH-WV inmate at the state prison.

Mr. Patton had Ms. Diehl-Armstrong waive her presence at the arraignment and will enter a not guilty plea on her behalf, the Erie Times-News reported on its Web site yesterday. Federal prosecutors last week charged Ms. Diehl-Armstrong, 58, and Kenneth E.

Barnes, 53, with bank robbery, conspiracy and a firearms violation in connection with the Aug. 28, 2003, robbery of a PNC Bank in Summit. Mr. Barnes, who is jailed in Erie County on unrelated drug charges, pleaded not guilty last week. The robbery ended when pizza deliveryman Brian Wells, 46, told police he had been forced at gunpoint to wear a bomb around his neck and rob the bank.

The bomb exploded, killing Wells. Prosecutors named Mr. Wells as an unindicted co-conspirator, saying he had a limited role in the plot. Mr. Wells' family insists he did not know the suspects.

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