EVERETT — Boastful burglar Byron “Bam” Bowman is headed back to the big house after confessing to nearly 50 break-ins at businesses in Snohomish County and beyond.
Bowman has added another 16 felony convictions to his rap sheet — a criminal history that already included 15 felonies and 20 misdemeanors. The Everett man on Thursday was sentenced to a decade in prison for his latest string of crimes.
Court records show that Bowman, 45, has made a career out of breaking into other people’s homes and businesses. He also remains a suspect in a July 1985 killing of a young Lake Roesiger woman, authorities said.
“He is the classic example of a career criminal,” Lake Stevens detective Jeff Lambier said. “This is how he lives. I hope after this stretch of time in prison he lives the rest of his life as a law-abiding citizen. Unfortunately, I think this is all he knows how to do.”
Bowman and two other men, including his son, Tyler “Bam Bam” Bowman, are accused of busting through drywall at stores and restaurants from October 2008 through May. Once inside, the masked men slid along on their bellies to avoid tripping security alarms, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mara Rozzano wrote in court papers.
The men would make a beeline for safes and cut them open on scene or pry them up and drag them out. Many of the break-ins were caught on video but the men weren’t identified until a woman gave detectives the lead they needed.
The woman told police she overheard her friend, Byron Bowman, bragging about the break-ins. She told police the men joked that they were employed as burglars.
That ended in May when a police task force raided a home where the men were staying.
“This was a group effort,” including a lot of hard work from Snohomish County sheriff’s detective Dennis Montgomery, Lambier said.
Investigators used cell phone records and forensic evidence, including shoe prints to place the older Bowman and James Densmore at some of the break-ins, Rozzano wrote.
Bowman in July agreed to ride around with detectives to point out the numerous locations he had hit. He refused to give up any information about his accomplices. He would only admit that he didn’t work alone. Bowman pointed our 49 burglary locations, including fast food restaurants, nail salons, taverns, theaters and senior citizen centers.
Bowman burglarized many small businesses, sometimes taking thousands of dollars, often hitting more than one place in a single night. That kind of theft has a significant impact on small business owners, Rozzano said.
“These people put their heart and soul into these businesses, and someone comes along and steals from them,” Lambier said. “Even though he got the maximum, it still feels like he got away with a lot.”
Under the standard sentencing range Bowman faced just over five years in prison. Superior Court Judge Larry McKeeman ruled there were legal grounds to go beyond the guidelines. He gave Bowman the maximum sentence allowed by law based on the number of burglaries and Bowman’s extensive criminal history.
His most recent felony conviction was in 2006 for methamphetamine possession.
In 1991 Bowman was named in court papers as both a witness and suspect in the shooting death of Tira Snyder, 19. Detectives speculated that the young mother interrupted a break-in at her home and was shot to death by the burglar.
Police have never made an arrest in the slaying. “No one has been ruled out in that case,” sheriff’s detective Jim Scharf said Thursday.
Tyler Bowman, 22, and Densmore, 50, remain charged with one count of first-degree theft and second-degree burglary. They are scheduled to go to trial later this year.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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