Remembering a Great Friend

April 26, 2006

Deborah Bowling was a great friend who was  extremely bright, full of life and wonder, and so much fun to be around. She was one of those special people we all know, whose mere presence  commands attention when they walk into a room. I felt fortunate to have known her, we shared so many laughs together over the years, but  I never could have imagined her life would be cut short so brutally by a man she considered a friend.  
The year 1974 was pretty significant in my life. I turned 21, bought my first car (a 1974 Fiat Special TC), graduated from the University of Michigan in Dental Hygiene, got married, and moved to Santa Barbara, California. 
Needless to say, Santa Barbara was literally another world from where I had been transplanted. My former husband Jon and I were so thrilled with ourselves for finding a VERY reasonable apartment only three blocks from the beach -- life couldn’t have been any better.
First stop was Sacramento, to see if I could work on a migrant program similar to what I had done the previous summer in Michigan. Prior to moving to California, I drove around  Traverse City, Northport and Leelanau with a portable generator in the trunk of my Fiat to elementary schools that participated in a program for migrant children 12 years and under. I had a dental hygiene student with me, and we would clean all the kids’ teeth and screen them for any dental problems or other health issues. Surprisingly, California has no such program, so I worked as a dental assistant for five months, until I could take the California State Board to practice dental hygiene. 
It just so happened, that the office I worked in had another dental assistant, too, named Deborah Bowling, and we became fast friends.
It wasn’t long before Deb ended up following her boyfriend at the time to New York, where he worked at Windows on the World -- the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. She made it back fairly often to visit in Santa Barbara, where she had attended high school; but from the minute Deb hit New York, she was completely taken by the excitement and exhilaration of the city. 
Her father, Howard from Pacific Grove, was  later quoted in Long Island Newsday as saying, ‘it’s boring here... boring but safe.’  I visited Deborah twice in New York -- once in 1979, and once in 1990, and while I knew I’d never want to live there, it was so invigorating to be in Manhattan, and I could see how Deb was flourishing there.
 
SOFT-SPOKEN ROOMMATE
By 1990 Deb was working at Carr International (an international brokerage firm), and also working on her PhD. at Hunter College in New York. She needed some help with the rent, so when Julian, who was a computer programmer at Hunter, was looking for a place to rent, she offered a room in her apartment to him as a platonic roommate. 
He seemed like a very nice man... soft spoken, intelligent, and unobtrusive when I met him in 1990 while staying with them for five days. What would take place the following year would forever change my world, and as the Don Henley song said, it was surely the ‘end of the innocence’ for me. Nothing since then has surprised me.
I received a call on Friday, August 2, 1991 from Deb’s mother Irene, saying she hadn’t shown up for work and was missing, asking if I’d heard from her. Deb was due to arrive at my house in Santa Barbara on August 8 to spend a few days visiting, and to attend her 20 year class reunion. We also had a trip to Costa Rica planned, so she had left a few recent phone messages, but I hadn’t spoken to her.  
From the minute that call came in on August 2, her family and friends in California and New York were in constant daily contact with each other and Julian,
who was giving an Oscar-winning perfor-mance as the very concerned, distaught, helpful roommate.  
By Monday, August 5, we all knew there was something seriously wrong, and Irene was on her way to New York with her son-in-law, Scott, to help look for her daughter. 
I had waited until about 10 p.m. New York time to call Julian in the hope that I’d be able to speak to Irene. The police happened to be there, and one of the officers asked to speak with me about Deb’s pending Santa Barbara visit. 
Shortly thereafter, the police happened to be looking in Julian’s bedroom, and saw a bottle of Pine Sol. They looked behind the bed, and found a torso in a duffle bag. They went downstairs, where they found Deborah’s head, legs, and arms in garbage bags waiting for the trash pick-up the following morning.
 
NO REMORSE 
Julian, who has never shown one shred of remorse, provided a two-hour taped confession, although he said it was self defense -- that Deborah had attacked him.
He stabbed her 12 times, tried to burn her body in the bathtub, and when that didn’t work, he took a subway downtown to buy a chain saw, and dismembered her body.  
Neighbors in the building had complained they smelled something burning, and Julian told them he’d left some soup on the stove while he was in the shower.  Late in the evening on August 5, they watched in horror, as the police actually pieced her body together on the sidewalk outside their apartment building.
Please understand I don’t include these disgusting details for sensationalism, but to shed light on what a horrific crime this was, and the fact that the perpetrator shouldn’t be set free to possibly do this to someone else. I also include a photo of Deborah, to give this crime a face -- she was a dear, dear friend, and has been missed by so many these past 13 years.
Julian was sentenced to life in prison, with eligibility for parole after 15 years, but is now up for parole at the 13 year mark (May 8 is his hearing). New York happens to be one of the states that doesn’t allow victim impact statements to be read at hearings, and the family or friends are not allowed to see or speak to the prisoner. 
While we realize that prisoners are rarely released at an initial parole hearing, we want to send a VERY strong message to the parole board that Julian shouldn’t be put back out on the street; so we ask for your help in printing out the petition you can find at the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children website,  http://www.pomc.org/petitions.cfm signing it, and sending it to the Parole Board in NY. Please feel free to obtain other signatures, as well, or write a letter if you are so inclined. Just scroll down the list to Julian Cowell -- he’s about the 13th name down on the list. Family and friends will be writing letters, and possibly sending videos.
Petitions and/or letters should be sent to this address no later than April 28-30, so that there will be time for them to be put in Julian’s file:
 
NYS Board of Parole
Victim Impact Unit
97 Central Ave.
Albany, New York 12206
 
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to help us keep this heinous criminal off the streets. 

Peg Muzzall is the Northern Express account representative serving Petoskey, Charlevoix, Gaylord and the Straits area.