Police Suspect Stepfather in Death of Ventura Girl Who Disappeared

The stepfather of a 15-year-old Ventura girl whose skeletal remains were found in a canyon is now considered a suspect in her death, Santa Barbara County investigators said Tuesday, confirming that they have searched his home and seized his car.

But Richard Bowens, stepfather of Jenniffer Rose Vernals, replied Tuesday, “I have nothing to do with the disappearance of Jenniffer,” whose bones were found Aug. 4 scattered through a canyon in Santa Barbara County.

Bowens, 38, said he was at work all day at a Simi Valley golf course on March 30, the day Jenniffer disappeared while on a shopping trip.

“I don’t know why they’re coming after me about a search,” said Bowens, who said he is depressed by the investigators’ scrutiny and convinced that he is being framed for Jenniffer’s death. “I don’t know why they’re putting me out as their scapegoat.”

Lois Bowens, who is Jenniffer’s mother, said she does not believe Richard Bowens killed her daughter.

“They asked me if I thought he could have done it, and I said, ‘No, he couldn’t have done it,’ ” Lois Bowens said. “He’s never been the type to hurt anyone. I’ve never known him to hurt my daughter.”

But she added, “It’s somebody I trusted with my daughter’s life, and it scares me to think he did that. I’m really, really hoping it’s not true, but I don’t know what to believe.”

Richard Bowens said that he left for work March 30 at 9:30 a.m. After a full work day as a range employee at Wood Ranch Golf Club, he punched out at 6:52 p.m. and got home at 7:30 p.m., he said.

“That’s when I found out that Jenniffer hadn’t come home yet,” he said.

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Jenniffer was last seen at about 1 p.m. March 30, leaving the Trueblood Thrift Shop on Ventura’s East Main Street.

Worried family members plastered picture posters all over Ventura County announcing the Anacapa Middle School eighth-grader’s disappearance.

At first, Ventura police classified Jenniffer as a runaway, saying that she had been seen hanging out with other runaways who later returned home.

But on Aug. 4, her remains were found near Toro Canyon Road about three miles east of U.S. 101. A rancher checking his water wells reported the find to police after his dog brought him a human leg bone.

Most of Jenniffer’s remains had been scattered within a 50-foot radius, but some bones were found more than half a mile away, where they probably had been dispersed by animals, investigators said.

The Santa Barbara County coroner’s office used dental records to confirm that the bones were Jenniffer’s. But as of Tuesday, the office still had not determined how she died, a spokeswoman said.

Investigators are treating the case as a homicide, and they consider Bowens a suspect in Jenniffer’s death, said Sgt. Bill Byrne, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.

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“We just don’t draw search warrants up out of the clear blue,” Byrne said. “Ever since the discovery of the body and confirming her identity, we’ve been pursuing this. It just takes time tracking a lot of these things down.”

Byrne said that Santa Barbara detectives armed with a search warrant arrived Monday afternoon at Bowens’ house and worked until early evening looking for evidence.

Detectives also searched a storage locker that Bowens was using, and they towed his car Monday afternoon from a parking area at the Wood Ranch Golf Club, Byrne said.

Santa Barbara investigators searched another Ventura house 1 1/2 weeks ago in connection with Jenniffer’s death, Byrne said, but he declined to say who lives there.

Bowens said that friends told him half a dozen deputies searched his house Monday while he was at work.

“My room was a mess,” he said. “They took some bike magazines and train magazines. They took an old rifle that didn’t work, a .22, it was all rusty and didn’t have a bolt to it . . . They were looking for some jewelry [of Jenniffer’s] but I don’t know if they found it or not.”

Bowens said he was shocked when Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies searched his house and towed his 1989 Ford Probe away from the golf course to check it for evidence.

Police told him he is a suspect in the case, “but I don’t know why,” he said. “They haven’t given me any reason why. They even went to my work and asked people if they punched [out my time card] early on the 30th, and no one did.”

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Bowens and his wife are going through a divorce that they say stems from the fallout of Jenniffer’s disappearance and death.

The day before Jenniffer’s remains were found, Lois Bowens won a court restraining order alleging that Richard Bowens had verbally and physically assaulted her, and forbidding him to go near her or Jenniffer.

But Lois Bowens’ stepfather filed a reply saying that she “has a volatile and aggressive nature” and was “out of control” after Jenniffer’s death. And Richard Bowens said that Lois Bowens had been taking antidepressants “and just went berserk.”

“I asked her to leave, she attacked me and she claims I attacked her,” he said.

“Now I can’t go pay my last respects to Jenniffer because I have to stay 100 yards away from [the body],” he said.