Kevin Brian Dowling
Summary of Cases

Kevin Brian Dowling was charged with of the robbery of 43-year-old Jennifer Lynn Myers. Fourteen months after the robbery, when Dowling was out on bail, Myers was murdered. Dowling was convicted of both crimes and sentenced to death for the murder.

Myers was robbed by a gunman on Aug. 5, 1996 at the shop she owned named Tailfeathers Gallery and Custom Framing in West Manchester Twp., Pa. At the time of the robbery, a police officer, Peter Haines, saw the apparent robber leave Myers' shop and get into his car about 10:50 a.m. The suspect crossed the street right in front of his eastbound moving police cruiser to his car parked on the eastbound shoulder. An elderly passenger, William Jarmon, in the car ahead of Haines, also saw the suspect. Neither was aware a robbery had just occurred. Several miles down the road Jarmon’s car was passed by a car that in all likelihood was driven by Kevin Dowling. After passing Jarmon, Dowling got stopped at a red light, with Jarmon getting a good view of it as his car, driven by his wife, pulled up behind it.

The next day Jarmon read a newspaper account of the robbery that included Haines’ sighting of the suspect. After convincing himself that the car which passed him was the same as that used by the robbery suspect, Jarmon called the police. Nine days later, following hypnosis, Jarmon identified the car as 1991 or 92 Lincoln Town Car, a model type which matched Dowling’s car. However, Officer Haines had given a much different description of the suspect’s car. He described the suspect’s car as having a slanted rear-end and a license plate with a white background. Dowling’s Lincoln had a boxy rear-end and a license plate with a dark background.

Police collected car registrations of Lincolns which fit Jarmon’s description from nearby counties including Lancaster where Dowling’s car was bought and registered. A few weeks after the robbery, Dowling started a new job at a Sheetz convenience store in Hanover, Pa. and began commuting to it five days a week, passing the robbery location each way. Evidence suggests police noticed Dowling, found out where he worked, and informally asked Myers to stop at his store and see if anyone there reminded her of the robber.

At the time of the robbery Myers said the assailant wore a dark cap and aviator style sunglasses. She said he had held a gun in his left hand, dropped it, and picked it up with his left-hand. The assailant had a military or police demeanor and told her that he had just gotten out of prison and did not want to go back. Dowling is right-handed, had no military or police training, had no prior convictions, had never been imprisoned, and did not own any clothing that matched the assailant's. Myers described her assailant as being in his late forties, about 5'6" tall, and weighing about 185 lbs. Dowling was 38 years old, at least 5'11" tall, and weighed 205 lbs.  He had a broken pair of sunglasses (non-aviator) in his car when arrested four months later. Officer Haines, who saw the robber leave the store, agreed with the physical description given by Myers.

Following the robbery, a U.P.S. delivery driver, Gary Altland, arrived at the victim’s shop at 11:00 a.m. He said she reported she had been robbed at gunpoint and tied up. She told him that the robbery was a joke which she would handle herself and did not want police to be called. Altland left and mentioned the crime to a woman at a nearby animal hospital who called police at 11:09 a.m. He told police he did not see a suspect or vehicle. Myers called police at 11:15 a.m. perhaps because she saw an Officer Crider arriving the same minute.

Prior to the robbery Myers had worked for a man named Randall Turner but had left to start her own business in a building Turner rented to her. She told witnesses including Jacqueline Rutledge and Marie Ellis that she suspected Turner of being behind the robbery. Jennifer’s husband, Steven, also suspected Turner of being behind the robbery and said it was rumored that Turner “had people who would do things for him.” Months later Dowling’s defense counsel Karen Kuebler told him that police and D.A. Stanley Rebert believed Turner had hired him to commit the robbery. Kuebler became uncooperative after becoming a prosecutor, but her handwritten notes verify her statement. Following the murder Turner shared the proceeds from the sale of Myers’ business.

Three months after the robbery, during a follow up contact with police, Myers mentioned that two weeks before she had stopped at a Sheetz convenience store in Hanover, Pa. and saw a man she said reminded her of the robber. Police never mentioned asking Myers to visit the store. Instead they acted as though Myers’ report was made on her own initiative. The apparent “lineup” identification of store employees requested by police failed as Myers picked a person other than Dowling.

A police report states that the man Myers identified was wearing a Manager nametag. The store she went to trained store managers for the region. On any given day there were 1 or 2 Assistant Manager trainees and 1 or 2 General Manager trainees along with clerks and a Training General Manager. Assistant Managers wore Manager nametags. Dowling was a General Manager and wore a nametag that said Kevin. This nametag is noted in a police report. Myers said she was “not certain” that the man she saw was the robber. She had said she could not visually identify the robber as he was wearing sunglasses and a hat. She never went back to the store to specify which Associate Manager she meant. Police arrested Dowling for the robbery because he drove a car identified by witness Jarmon and worked at the store identified by the victim supposedly on her own initiative.

The day before Dowling's arrest, Myers suddenly remembered she had been sexually assaulted as well as robbed. Such a remembrance may have been encouraged by the police in order to create juror prejudice against the person they planned to charge with the robbery. At Dowling’s trial, 20 months after the crime, the U.P.S. driver, Gary Altland, would change his account of his encounter with Myers to accommodate this alleged assault. At trial Altland claimed that Myers came down the steps tossing ropes off, with a torn blouse and a bra up around her neck. He claimed she said the robber tried to rape her. An Officer Crider testified he arrived at 11:15 a.m., and found the victim on the phone to police then herself. He was not told about an attempted rape, her clothes were in order, and he saw no rope marks on her wrists or ankles, as Altland claimed. Altland also claimed that he saw something go by him quickly as he was bringing in packages and then heard tires squealing and horns blowing. In connection with the robbery Dowling was also convicted of an attempted sexual assault of Myers.

Ten months after Dowling's arrest, while he was out on bail, Myers was shot to death at her new shop in Spring Grove, Pa. The following day Dowling's attorneys filed a motion on their own to dismiss the charges against him because the case could not proceed as their client was now unable to confront the victim with her past statements when others accused him on her behalf. Dowling did not speak to his attorneys until after the motion was filed. The timing of the motion raised suspicion that Dowling killed Myers to get the robbery case against him dismissed. The trial judge delayed ruling on the motion, giving police and prosecutors two months to meet with other witnesses and coach new statements from them about what Myers allegedly told them. None of the witnesses’ statements were reported to the police prior to the murder. These statements were ruled admissible as “excited utterance” exceptions to the ban on hearsay testimony.

On the day of the murder, Dowling went fishing at Muddy Run Lake and Recreational Center in Holtswood, Pa. He said he planned to fish the whole day but because the fish were not biting, he left at 11:05 a.m. to go to Adult World entertainment establishment in Harrisburg, Pa. Adult World and the fishing lake are both about an hour’s drive from the scene of the murder. Adult World is also about an hour's drive from the lake. Dowling was in Harrisburg at 12:57 p.m. which according to the prosecution was when the murder occurred. He then returned to the lake to fish, arriving there about 2:30 p.m. Dowling was known as an avid videotaper and would likely have videotaped himself fishing even if he did not have a second use for his video. He made short clips of himself fishing containing comments to his family and children. When he returned to the lake after his Adult World trip, he altered the time on the videorecorder so that the next four clips appeared to be made while he was away from the lake. He did not want his wife to guess that he left the lake as she would have questioned him on where he went. Dowling also made clips with the correct time for the remained of his fishing trip.

Early the next morning, while Dowling was working an overnight shift, police came to his house and questioned his wife about his whereabouts the previous day. She told them he spent the day fishing and showed them the videotape, which police seized. At Dowling’s trial the prosecution presented the videotape as a false alibi intended by Dowling to fool detectives investigating the murder of Myers. However, neither he nor his attorneys presented it as an alibi or in a notice of alibi. He told his attorney the day after his arrest for the murder that he was at Adult World at the alleged time of the murder and within days defense investigators visited the location.

Dowling’s leaving the lake was more or less public knowledge to everyone except his wife. Clarence Hess, the agent who rented a boat to Dowling, knew full well that Dowling came to the lake at 10:20 a.m., left at 11:05 a.m., and returned at 2:30 p.m. Hess noticed that upon his return Dowling parked his car in a different spot, closer to his boat. Hess even saw Dowling videotaping himself in the parking lot. Dowling was the only person who rented a boat that day. Dowling avoided returning his boat to Hess at 11:05 a.m. so he would not have to pay for a second rental upon his return. Hikers in the area, along with Hess, saw Dowling’s boat tied up on the shore of the lake during the midday hours.

The victim was found dead in her store at 3:07 p.m. Since entering customers would likely have seen her body and reported the murder, it appeared that she was killed just minutes before. But police soon learned that Hess gave Dowling a 2:30 p.m. alibi at the lake and a 1:27 p.m. road trip alibi to the lake. So police had to set an early time of murder if they hoped to keep Dowling as a suspect. They set the time of murder to 12:57 p.m. It implied no customer or other person entered the store for more than 2 hours, a highly unlikely scenario for most stores. The police gathered some witness evidence supporting their time of murder, but none of the evidence is compelling. Dowling's defense did not comprehend the time of murder issue and failed to dispute the time at trial.

The day after the murder Steven Myers told police he entered the front door of the store, walked towards the counter, and observed his wife lying on the floor behind it. Police apparently did not like the implication that his wife was highly visible to customers and induced Steven Myers to change his story. At trial Steven said that he walked through the front room, saw no body, walked through the back room, and then on re-entering the front room, happened to glance down and see his wife’s body.

Dowling’s court alibi prevented him from arguing at trial that he was at any location other than Adult World during the alleged time of the murder. Nevertheless, after the alibi was filed, the prosecution went and hired an astrophysicist named Robert Boyle to dispute the timestamps on the fishing videotape which Boyle did at trial. Boyle had done work for NASA. Presumably the prosecution was trying to create the impression for jurors that the fishing tape was an airtight alibi intentionally made by Dowling to cover up the murder and that they had to hire a top space scientist to dispute it. Boyle determined or tried to determine times that several video clips on the fishing tape were made using the angle of the shadows that the sun cast on objects in the video. He selected single frames of each clip to analyze.

Boyle’s stated results were that the video clips Dowling made at 10:44 a.m. and 3:05 p.m. had correct timestamps but the timestamps of three clips made in between had incorrect stamps. It was not clear how much Boyle was influenced by the statements Hess gave police, but he completely agreed with him.

Years later the Court TV show Forensic Files produced and aired a TV episode entitled “Shadow of a Doubt,” that focused on the alleged videotape alibi being scientifically disproved by Boyle. The show’s producers did not consult with Dowling or anyone connected with his defense. Two other TV episodes were produced about the case, one by the series American Monster and another by the Investigation Discovery series Solved. Both also focused on the alleged alibi as proof of guilt.

There is much evidence that Dowling had been at Adult World on the day of the murder. He knew the name of a visiting out-of-state dancer who worked the 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. He knew the layout of the rooms; that there was a $6 fee for the theater; that patrons were given a ticket so that they could leave and return again the same day. Visible security cameras in the parking lot and in a store area likely recorded Dowling. A review of the recorded tapes might have completely confirmed his visit. Unfortunately the tapes were reused every week and were not requested in time.

Numerous witnesses saw the apparent murderer in the hours before the murder. Two school bus drivers, Karen Wood and Kim Able, saw the murder suspect in a parking lot near the murder scene between 7:50 and 8:20 a.m. A third witness saw the murder suspect in the same parking lot between 10 and 10:35 a.m. when she went into a store to shop. She said that after she exited the store at 10:50 a.m., the suspect almost hit her with his car. According to witness Hess, Dowling did not leave the lake until 11:05 a.m. and could not have arrived before 12:05 p.m.

Much evidence implicates other suspects in robbery and murder. One of them is the Randall Turner mentioned above. Another is Howard Poteet, a man who went on a robbery spree in the York County area. In his known robberies Poteet wore clothing similar to those described by Myers. In 1995 Poteet had spent months in prison on forgery charges before being paroled 9 months before Myers' robbery. Myers' robber told her he had recently been in prison and had no desire to return. Poteet was also known to have been in the general area of Myers' shops at the times of the robbery and murder. He was known to return to the same locations to commit crimes twice. A witness of the murder suspect made a composite that bears a strong resemblance to Poteet. A second witness identified a newspaper photo of Poteet as being similar to the murder suspect she saw.

Another suspect in the murder is Steven Myers, the victim’s husband. A pair of sunglasses were found near the decedent’s body, and although Myers talked to police on the day of the murder, he did not admit the sunglasses were his until days later, after it became obvious that police were interested in them as a means of identifying the murderer. It is not clear if Myers provided a copy of his work timecard, but in any event he worked less than 10 minutes from the murder scene and could presumably have slipped away from work for 20 minutes without punching out, possibly in the guise of taking a lunch break or a smoking break. His employer, United Defense, had over 1000 employees so it is not clear that anyone would notice his absence.

The murder weapon was determined to be a .357 caliber revolver, Smith and Wesson model. Steven Myers owned this same model. Steven’s brother, Lonnie Myers, turned over Steven’s gun to the police 17 days after the murder. On TV episodes about the case police and prosecutors repeatedly stated that it was ruled out as the murder weapon. But the police gun analyst at trial explicitly stated it could have been the murder weapon.

There was much evidence in the case that was withheld from Dowling's defense during his trials or destroyed by the police. The two 911 calls made reporting the robbery were destroyed by police along with transcripts made of them.  In 2001, three years after his convictions, Dowling got photocopies of two boxes of withheld discovery material from both of his trials. In it was proof that the prosecutor coached and tampered with witnesses in both trials. In 2007, Pennsylvania Governor Rendell signed a death warrant for Dowling. Dowling's execution has since been stayed.