Extradition in 1967 rape-murder

A man accused of raping and murdering a high school freshman 41 years ago waived extradition and will be sent to stand trial in Ohio, the Riverside County district attorney’s office said Monday.

Robert “Bo” Brent Bowman, 72, was arrested in Cathedral City last week when two investigators working on an unrelated case mistook him for someone wanted on a local subpoena and, while interviewing him, discovered he was wanted in Ohio. Bowman is being held at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside until Ohio authorities can pick him up.

Bowman is wanted in connection with the December 1967 rape, torture and murder of Eileen Adams, 14. The case was featured on “America’s Most Wanted.” According to the television program, authorities believe the girl was abducted after getting off a school bus in Toledo. A few weeks later, her bound body was found in a field in Monroe County, Michigan.

The case went cold until 1981, when Bowman’s wife called police with a tip. But it took advances in DNA technology and a persistent “cold case” detective to finally provide sufficient evidence to issue a murder warrant, in 2006.