Service Honors Girl Who Died After Disappearance

As a child, Jenniffer Vernals enjoyed the countless visits she made to Foster Park. Swimming in the nearby Ventura River, lounging beneath the trees or celebrating a birthday were among the activities that made the park at the north end of the Ojai Freeway special, said her mother, Lois Bowens.

Bowens, 34, went back to Foster Park on Saturday, not to watch her daughter splash in the cool river or enjoy a birthday party with friends, but to join about 100 others in a memorial service for the 15-year-old, whose skeletal remains were found in August in a canyon in Santa Barbara County.

“This was my daughter’s favorite place,” said Bowens of Oak View. “That’s why we decided to have the service here. This brings to a head the fact that she’s gone. It brings to a close a part of my life. At least I know where she is.”

The time was right for a memorial service, Bowens said, even though authorities still have not released the remains of Jenniffer, Bowens’ only child.

Bowens last saw her daughter alive the morning of March 30 as Bowens prepared to go to work. “She was curled up in bed with the covers all pulled over her head,” Bowens said. “I sat down next to her and told her to be good and do her chores. She gave me a kiss and a hug and told me she would see me later. Then she went back to sleep.”

Jenniffer, an eighth-grader at Anacapa Middle School, went to downtown Ventura with friends that Saturday to scour the thrift stores. She last was seen about 1 p.m. leaving Trueblood Thrift Shop on East Main Street.

“She walked out to use the phone to call for a ride home,” said her mother. “But she never made it to the phone.”

Not a trace of the girl was seen until Aug. 4, when a rancher found some human remains on his Toro Canyon property, near Montecito. Authorities do not know how Jenniffer died, how her remains ended up in Toro Canyon or who is responsible for her death.

Jenniffer’s stepfather and Lois Bowens’ estranged husband, Richard Bowens of Ventura, was questioned by Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies. Most of the belongings seized by authorities in a Sept. 9 raid of his house are still in police custody, Richard Bowens said Saturday.

Lois Bowens agreed to a one-day lifting of a restraining order against her ex-husband, who was allowed to attend the service. Although he and Jenniffer’s mother did not sit together, they were civil prior to the service. As he waited for the service to begin, Richard Bowens lamented being considered a suspect in the case and expressed anger at authorities over the items taken during the search of his house.

“I had written a speech for this, but the police took it when they [served] the search warrant,” Richard Bowens said. “They took everything. I’m lucky they didn’t find the poem I wrote.”

The poem is called “Jenniffer’s Prayer” and was read during the memorial by Jenniffer’s middle school journalism teacher, Laurie Curtis-Abbe. The poem spoke of Jenniffer’s naivete and her desire to prove herself.

For her friends, Jenniffer was always there with a hug and kind words.

“All my friends would ditch me, but she would be there for me,” said 14-year-old Taos Glickman of Ventura.

A former boyfriend, 14-year-old Michael Sumner, said what he will miss most about Jenniffer is “her presence.” After the service was over, Michael, a U.S. Naval Sea Cadet from Ventura, placed a chain around Lois Bowens’ neck. On it was his dog tag.

“Jenniffer was the first girl who really ever noticed me,” Michael said.