Man Guilty of Killing Ex-Girlfriend in Retaliation

A former Canoga Park man was found guilty Tuesday of murdering his ex-girlfriend because she testified in court that he had beaten her, a conviction that makes him liable to the death penalty.

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury deliberated for two hours before finding 40-year-old Mark Bowersock guilty of killing Laurie Prejean, 36.

The jury of eight men and four women also found Bowersock guilty of committing the crime under special circumstances--in retaliation for the victim’s testimony against him--and of residential burglary.

During the penalty phase of the trial, scheduled to begin Thursday, Bowersock could be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

Wearing a dark gray suit, Bowersock stared straight ahead, displaying no emotion as the verdict was read. He turned to face the courtroom audience only briefly after a spate of applause.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Chasworth said the case held a special significance for her because “as prosecutors we’ve all encouraged reluctant victims to come to court and testify.”

“People need to be able to come forward and testify to the truth, without being afraid to do it,” she said. “The justice system cannot tolerate somebody killing somebody because they testify.”

Bowersock’s attorney, Public Defender Charles Klum, declined to comment.

At various times after the February 1995, killing, Bowersock offered conflicting accounts. Initially he denied shooting Prejean, but during the trial he took the stand in his own defense, testifying that the killing was accidental, the result of a scuffle initiated by Prejean.

Chasworth argued that the killing was clearly intentional and consistent with Bowersock’s previous violence toward another former girlfriend.

In March 1994, Bowersock was convicted of assaulting a former girlfriend and was sentenced to a year in County Jail and placed on probation, Chasworth said.

But Bowersock posted a bond of $25,000 that allowed him to remain free while he appealed his conviction.

On Dec. 22, 1994, a warrant for his arrest was issued for violating the terms of his probation. A city attorney asked Prejean to testify at the hearing.

During the hearing on Jan. 24, 1995, Prejean “testified to the facts of [Bowersock] having assaulted her,” Chasworth said.

Bowersock was found to be in violation of his probation and was sentenced to jail. While in jail, Bowersock vowed that Prejean “was going to get what was coming to her,” according to trial testimony by his landlord, who spoke to him by phone.

Bowersock was released from jail Jan. 29. He testified that he had hired a private investigator to locate Prejean, who had obtained a court order forbidding him to come near her.

“She was hiding out from him,” Chasworth said.

On Feb. 3, Bowersock went to the Saugus home of Prejean’s sister and found Prejean on the phone with a nurse, who testified at the trial.

“In the midst of their conversation, [Prejean] starts screaming, ‘Oh my God no, no, no, please no!’ ” Chasworth said.

“Probably within 10 seconds she hears two gunshots close together. She hears the victim dying on the phone. She hears her taking her last breath. No argument preceded the shooting. It didn’t seem like she had a chance to defend herself. Her only recourse at that point was to beg for mercy.”

Bowersock fled in Prejean’s car, then took a bus to a friend’s house in Arizona, where he buried the gun in the desert. Eventually Bowersock turned himself in to authorities.

“I knew he was guilty, but I prayed every night that the jury would find him guilty,” Prejean’s mother, Kathryn Emery, who lives in Oregon, said after the verdict.

“I prayed to God that this man would pay for what he did to her. She was a loving, caring daughter and she was my youngest child. I was waiting for him to show some remorse or something and I never, ever, saw it in there, and I can’t understand people like that.”