On the morning of April 20, 2023, a coworker discovered a grim scene at a residence on Fromans Road in western Frederick County, Virginia. Inside the home, authorities found the bodies of Joshua Daniel Carter, a 49-year-old White male, and his colleague, 40-year-old Pamela Marie Lowande. Both had been shot to death in what Sheriff Lenny Millholland described as a brutal slaying. Investigators determined the attack was targeted and not a random act of violence.
Both Carter and Lowande worked for MSA Security, a New York-based company with a satellite facility in Virginia. Carter was a project manager, and Lowande was a training coordinator for working dogs. The company described them as highly regarded employees who were well-liked by their peers. A forensic pathologist would later testify that Carter was shot four times, while Lowande sustained twelve gunshot wounds.
The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office began an exhaustive investigation.
At the scene, they recovered numerous spent 9-millimeter shell casings. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives analyzed the casings and found DNA on four of them. The investigation soon focused on a coworker of the victims, Jason Matthew William Bowen. The DNA on the shell casings matched his, with an analyst stating the likelihood of it belonging to another male was 1 in 127,000.
On July 5, 2023, authorities arrested Bowen, then 43, and charged him with two counts of second-degree murder. Investigators learned that Bowen had been in a romantic relationship with Lowande that ended a couple of years prior. Other coworkers described tension between them, and court documents indicated that Carter had intervened in his role as project manager. Bowen was held without bond at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center.
A grand jury later indicted Bowen on the more serious charge of aggravated murder, which in Virginia carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. He was also indicted on multiple firearm offenses, including two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and sixteen counts of discharging a firearm inside a building. Bowen’s double murder trial is now underway. Jurors have heard testimony from forensic experts regarding the DNA and firearm evidence that prosecutors say connect Bowen to the killings, while his defense attorneys have challenged the reliability of that evidence. The trial is ongoing.
