Man Gets Life in ’94 Slaying of Saugus Woman

Mark “Woody” Bowersock, the former Canoga Park man who was convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend after she testified against him, was sentenced Thursday to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for the 1994 slaying in Saugus.

In passing sentence for first-degree murder with special circumstances, Judge Judith Ashmann cited what she said was Bowersock’s lack of remorse and overall inability to understand the gravity of the crime.

“In my view, Mr. Bowersock, the act was cold, calculated and deliberate,” Ashmann said. “It’s simply obvious you are disturbed and out of touch with reality. I believe you are a danger to society.”

Bowersock’s lawyer, Charles Klum, made a plea for a new trial because he said his client was treated unfairly. “I think I went to trial with a client who was ultimately unpopular,” Klum said. Ashmann rejected the plea.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Chasworth urged the judge to take into account how this case would affect future witnesses deciding whether to come forward.

“The fact that he did this after she testified against him makes it all that much worse and horrible for society in general and for the people in the justice system,” said Chasworth in her argument for the stiffest penalty possible for Bowersock.

In June, a jury found the 40-year-old Bowersock guilty of killing 36-year-old Laurie Prejean after she testified at Bowersock’s hearing on probation violation charges that he had beat her.

Days after being released from jail on that charge, Bowersock tracked down Prejean through a private investigator and went to her sister’s Saugus home, where Bowersock said the pair got into a scuffle and his gun went off. Family members said Prejean’s slaying was premeditated and that Bowersock had planned all along to kill her.

Prejean’s sister, Terri Hansen, testified she was speaking to Prejean on the phone at the time, and heard her sister scream before she was killed.

Since under the law that allows relatives and friends of the victim to give brief speeches before sentencing, Prejean’s friends pleaded with the court for a stiff sentence.

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“I don’t believe in the death penalty, really,” said family friend Esther Bradley during her address to the court just minutes before Bowersock was sentenced. “But something needs to happen to this man. I don’t believe he should be allowed to eat a slice of pizza, have conjugal visits or even to see sunshine. Laurie won’t be able to.”

When the judge asked Bowersock if he had any last comments, Bowersock began sobbing and looked down at the table.

“I know the devastation,” Bowersock said, tears streaming into his mustache. “I feel it every day . . . I have to laugh, otherwise I will have a heart attack.”

During his rambling, 10-minute speech, Bowersock accused a court clerk of tampering with evidence and tried to blame Prejean’s death on alcoholism. He apologized to her sister, Hansen, for making crude gestures to her during the trial.

“I am really sorry about your sister,” Bowersock said, looking back at Hansen in the courtroom.

“Yeah, right,” she said.

Minutes later, Hansen walked out, saying, “This is so much bull . . . I can’t take it anymore.”

Tammi Fagan, a representative of the city attorney’s Victim’s Assistance Program who helped the family after the slaying, said she has worked on many cases in which men had harassed women, but no other in which a victim had been tracked down and killed.

“The system didn’t work this time,” Fagan said. “And I am sorry for the women out there going through this. Why would they come forward after seeing this?”