After 10 Months, Killer Still At Large Othello Investigation Fails To Find Bowers’ Murderer
The person who gut-shot Dale Bowers and left him to die in his Othello, Wash., driveway is still out there, free and unpunished.
After 10 months of investigation, Adams County detectives have collected “a lot” of evidence and have whittled the pool of suspects to a few “people of interest,” Sheriff Mike Kline said.
What they haven’t done is found a link between the clues and the suspects, a connection that would solve the killing of one of Othello’s leading citizens, Kline said.
“The threads we have to tie them together are thin, really thin,” he said.
Investigators hope a $30,000 reward will prompt someone to come forward with information.
The case rattled the small town between Moses Lake and the Tri-Cities and shattered the emotions of the victim’s family.
“They need this case to be closed,” Kline said. “They need this to be over.”
Bowers, 57, was killed just before 5 p.m. on Oct. 3 at his farmhouse on West Hampton Road, five miles south of Othello.
Authorities said someone shot him once in the stomach with his own gun, which was found at the scene near Bowers’ idling pickup.
A front window to the house was broken and several items inside were disturbed, but detectives ruled out robbery as a motive.
Kline has refused to discuss his theory of what happened.
Bowers’ widow, Lynda, was in Spokane this week trying to create interest in her husband’s case.
“He was a good man,” she said. “We just hope someone will help find the people who did this and get them off the streets. They are either unbalanced or evil people.”
Bowers lived in Othello for more than 30 years and was a prominent citizen.
He served on the school board and the rodeo association and was a fire commissioner for a decade.
In addition to farming, he worked as a manager at AAA Concrete in Moses Lake.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Adams County Sheriff’s Department at (509) 488-2061.
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