Possibilities still haunt father

By DEBORAH HASTINGS Associated Press 7/22/01

During an interview at his Oklahoma City home, Jim Fowler displays the last photos taken of his son Mark, who was executed earlier this year. Fowler was critical of police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, whose testimony was a key element in the conviction of Mark Fowler. J. PAT CARTER / Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The sins of Jim Fowler's youngest son were not exceptionally wicked. Joyriding in a stolen Mercedes. Ditching school. Running away. Things certain kids do in sleepy towns waiting for their lives to begin, for something, anything, to happen."He was a good kid," says his haunted father. "God dang, he was a lot of fun."

He was also in a lot of scrapes with juvenile authorities. All of them "dumb," his dad said. But when he surveys the past looking for signposts to his son's death sentence, he always comes back to this: Mark was never violent.The miseries of Jim Fowler stretch 16 years. Two sons dead, one by execution. His elderly mother raped and murdered. And his family devastated not once, but twice by the testimony of Joyce Gilchrist, an expert

witness for the prosecution.

On July 3, 1985, at 3 a.m., Mark Fowler, 19, and a man named Billy Ray Fox pulled up to an IGA grocery store. Fox had a plan to make easy money. Mark barely knew him.

Stoned on drugs, they'd staggered into Fox's pickup and went to the market where Fox had been recently fired. He had a deal with the night manager. A bag of money, skimmed from the cash registers, would be waiting.But the night manager wasn't at work. And right there, Mark Fowler crossed the line.

The entire night shift, three men ranging in age from 27 to 44, were ordered face-down in the storage room. Two had their heads blown off with a 16-gauge shotgun. The third was beaten, then stabbed to death.

Mark Fowler later said he stood lookout and had nothing to do with killings.Gilchrist testified that hair found on one victim's shirt and on the murder weapon matched Fowler's. It showed he was in the storage room, she said.Mark Fowler and Billy Ray Fox were executed in January."They didn't have to kill my boy," his father said, sobbing.

Sometimes Jim Fowler's warm and folksy voice carries stories about Mark without cracking. Sometimes it breaks."I cannot change what my son did. He went up there to get money dishonestly," he says. "But he told us from day one that he didn't kill anybody."

Gilchrist has helped put 11 men to death in a state that has more executions per capita than any other, according to a recent survey by Amnesty International. But her testimony, spanning 13 years and hundreds of cases, is under investigation by the state, an organization of defense lawyers, the police department and the district attorney's office.

Her career began to unravel in May, when Oklahoma released Jeffery Todd Pierce, who served 15 years of a 65-year sentence for a rape he didn't commit. Recent DNA testing proved his semen didn't match that found in the victim.

Gilchrist is now on paid leave, pending an administrative hearing. She refused to be interviewed for this story. In earlier statements, she has denied wrongdoings.But what if innocent people were executed because of Gilchrist's testimony? This haunts Jim Fowler.

Four months after his son's 1986 conviction, Fowler's 82-year-old mother, Anne Laura Fowler, was raped and murdered in her Oklahoma City home. Gilchrist's testimony helped put Robert Lee Miller Jr. in prison. But 10 years after being sent to death row, Miller was released when a DNA semen analysis proved he didn't attack Mrs. Fowler.

If Gilchrist was wrong about Miller and Pierce, couldn't she be wrong about Mark Fowler? And about others already put to death? The state says no.

"We have done a review of all of those cases and have preliminarily established that they're not problematic," said Gerald Adams, spokesman for the attorney general's office. However, the office has since announced that the prosecutions of three men now on death row would be examined further because of questions about Gilchrist's work.

Miller is now represented by Garvin Isaacs, a criminal defense attorney. Arms outstretched, palms up, he frets that the scales of justice will forever be unbalanced by one of the worst scandals in Oklahoma's legal history. "I think there's a high degree of possibility that some of those people who were executed were innocent."

Fowler lost his second son in 1994, while Mark was on death row. "Jimbo" Fowler was killed in a motorcycle accident. The way Fowler's mother died makes the door to his mind slam shut. "I don't have the words," he says. He weeps, then coughs, then apologizes.

Mark and Jimbo were adopted separately, each at 2 weeks old. Mark was 15 when his adoptive mother died. "He knew his biological mother had abandoned him. Then the only mother he knew died," says his father.

Mark was arrested a few days after the murders, after Fox told his roommates, "I've done something terrible tonight. I killed some men." He and Mark Fowler were tried together on the same charges. District Attorney Bob Macy told jurors there was no way one man could kill three people with a single-action shotgun. Gilchrist testified that hair consistent with Mark Fowler's was found on the shotgun and indicated "close violent contact." The defense put on a forensic expert who said the strands were just as consistent with Fox's hair.

The jury believed Gilchrist."She answers questions in a way that makes it clear she damn well knows what she's talking about," said Fowler. After Mark's conviction, Jim and his second wife, Ann, whom he married in 1980, at first could not bring themselves to visit the state penitentiary because they said they were angry at him.But during jailhouse visits, Fowler reconnected with his son. "He said to me, `Pop, I did a damn stupid thing. I went down to get this easy money.' "

Early on the day of Mark's execution, Fowler called his son. "I told him that there might be as many as 200 people outside holding a candlelight vigil for him. He said, `Dad, if that happens, put your hand on your head when they pull back the curtain so I'll know."

So Ann and Jim Fowler went to the execution and the curtain went up. All of the family witnesses put a hand atop their heads. "Mark looked back, and he saw that, and he settled down," said Jim Fowler.

Next came the question. Did the prisoner have any last words? Mark began to recite the Hail Mary."Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women . . ." And then it was over.