'I'm taking my power back': Survivors of 'Ramsey Street rapist' speak as he's sentenced to more than two decades in prison

The secrets of a sexual predator were laid bare in a Cumberland County courtroom on Friday when six women — identifying as “survivors” — told a judge what the "Ramsey Street rapist" did to them more than a decade ago when he stalked a predawn north Ramsey Street attacking innocent women.

Darold Wayne Bowden, 47, pleaded guilty to two dozen charges of rape, second-degree sexual offense, kidnapping, larceny, indecent liberties with a child, statutory rape, burglary and larceny. In exchange for the plea, redundant charges were dismissed, District Attorney Billy West said.

Sitting in the first row of the courtroom gallery were five of the six women Bowden nearly destroyed, and whose testimony Friday proved that he didn't.

Judge Jim Ammons sentenced the father of six and former self-employed HVAC repairman to a maximum of nearly 29 years in prison.

With credit for time served since his August 2018 arrest, Bowden would spend at "least a quarter of a century, and hopefully the rest of his life, in prison" for what he did, West said.

Should he survive his prison stint and be released, the judge ruled, Bowden would be a registered sex offender with lifetime satellite monitoring. Ammons also ordered that during Bowden's incarceration he undergo psychiatric and psychological counseling, and that he receive sex offender treatment. He denied Bowden's request that he be considered for work release — with Ammons going a step further to say he would ask that Bowden not be a candidate for early release and ordering the women's testimony be transcribed at state cost to share with any parole board.

Ammons also noted that when Bowden was asked if he wanted to say anything to the victims; the court; his family; the public, he stayed silent.

"The court finds, as a fact, when given the opportunity, the defendant expressed no remorse," Ammons said.

The crimes

The prosecutor recounted each of the assaults of the five women and a 15-year-old girl, the majority of whom were pounced on inside their own homes as they slept and the sun was preparing to rise.

On March 31, 2006, Bowden claimed his first victim when he entered a home in the 6200 block of Ramsey Street and confronted a woman as she emerged from the shower shortly before 6:30 a.m. He forced her into her bedroom and said he "just wanted to touch her for a few minutes and then he would leave." After molesting her, Bowden ordered the woman to wait five minutes after he left before she called the police. He told her he’d entered through an unlocked door.

Less than five months later, a 23-year-old woman was running in the 4400 block of Ramsey Street shortly before 6 a.m., on Aug. 23, 2006, when Bowden tackled her and said he had a gun. He forced her into the woods and sexually assaulted her. Before disappearing into the dark, he asked her name and what she would be doing later.

Another six months would pass before Bowden would enter the backdoor of an apartment in the 5800 block of Ramsey Street on Feb. 12, 2007, and shake a woman awake. Then he covered her mouth, warned her to not scream and sexually assaulted her. He asked her too, what she’d be doing later, then took $70 from her purse as he left.

The evidence the assailant left behind, in this case, would prove to be Bowden’s undoing 12 years later. A court order would allow police to extract his DNA and it would be a match of DNA found at the scene at one in 4.51 sextillion — more than 581 billion times the population of the earth. A second crime scene would find the same astronomical percentages in the evidence he left behind.

In less than a month, Bowden would strike again. On March 6, 2007, a 15-year-old girl was home alone and asleep when she was awakened by the weight of a man on top of her shortly before 5 a.m. The then-32-year-old Bowden, by then a father himself, raped the child and left behind some DNA on her cartoon character-themed sheets. He entered and exited through a window.

Six months later, on Sept. 18, 2007, a college student asleep on her couch at her home in the 6000 block of Ramsey Street, was awakened shortly before 4:20 a.m. by hands around her neck. Because there were roommates, Bowden led her out of the sliding glass doors and into a field where he sexually assaulted her. He assaulted her again on her patio, before telling her to go back inside and lay on the couch. He warned her he would know if she didn’t because he could see her through the sliding glass doors. Before leaving, he took her keys, cellphone and purse.

Then four months later, Bowden would return to the apartment complex of his February assault, this time entering the home of a mother asleep on her couch on Jan. 26, 2008. He woke her by choking her, then threatened to harm her young daughter if the woman caused him any trouble. He raped her and before leaving, told her she should close and lock her window.

The survivors

After West related the facts of the case to the judge, all five of the survivors who attended the hearing took turns speaking.

Bowden, the large swastika on his chest hidden beneath an orange jailhouse jumpsuit and his face partially obscured by a hospital mask, sat quietly next to his defense attorney. As the women made their way to the prosecution table, they passed within feet of the man who caused them so much harm.

First up was his target in the August 2006 attack. She said she was 23 years old at the time and was attacked as she ran along Ramsey Street to train for marathons.

“He violated me. He terrorized me and he crushed my dignity,” she said. “This man left me a helpless victim. He broke me of my autonomy, of my self-esteem, and of my confidence.

“Because of what he did to me that day. My faith in myself and my faith in the world has been destroyed forever.”

She said that since the attack, she’s struggled with anxiety and PTSD. The energy she once put toward her family, profession and athletics, she said, now goes to “just surviving on a daily basis."

“Judge Ammons, l ask is that you make sure this defendant never does this to another human being,” she said. “With the sentence you hand down today, you can tell my parents, you can tell me and the other survivors ... that we matter, not just as victims but as survivors.”

Saturday will mark exactly 15 years since Bowden raped a 44-year-old woman Feb. 12, 2007. In her statement, she noted as much, saying that after the attack she sold her belongings to move home with her parents.

As a result, she said, she lost the business she’d spent 19 years building, and when potential buyers learned what happened at her house, she was unable to sell it. With no income to pay the mortgage, she was forced into bankruptcy. She said she became reclusive. Accompanying her to court was her “safety and security,” was a large, well-mannered red and rust Doberman pinscher with a shiny coat and a vest reading “Service Dog.”

“Predators like (Bowden) don't ever stop, and if he is not made an example of and held accountable for his actions, we will be right back here wasting more resources and time.

"He lived over 11 years carefree after my attack and now it is time for him to be held accountable for his actions,” she said.

Then, addressing Bowden, she said, “I pray that your daughters will never have to suffer and endure what you put me through. It's bad enough that they will have to live knowing that their father is a serial rapist.

“Through your actions, you have brought shame to your children, and I pray the sins of the parents do not fall upon their children.”

Bowden’s victim from September 2007, who was a college student at the time, spoke next.

“He made the decision to take what did not belong to him and that was me. I have lived with anger, guilt, disgust and in fear. His actions ruined the best years of my life just as I was discovering the woman I was meant to be. He gave no thought to what he did and has no remorse for his monstrous, greedy actions,” she said, her voice quaking. “Today, I finally get to see justice... Today, I'm taking back my power and I'm letting go of all the anger…

“I will live my life with my head held high as the woman I am supposed to be. I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor.”

Next up was the young mother who was attacked in January 2008. She thanked the other women for sharing their stories, calling them brave and courageous for “not being silent.”

When she first spoke, she seemed nervous, but as her statement continued, her voice strengthened.

“For so long I felt ashamed and embarrassed about what happened to me, but it is not me that should be ashamed or embarrassed. This defendant that is sitting here in shackles should be the one that should feel quite ashamed and embarrassed about his habitual life of crime," she said.

She said that in high school Bowden must not have paid attention when learning about U.S. law.

“Freedom does not mean that one is free to take whatever they wish, like stealing tools, cars; breaking into someone else's home; stealing a woman's innocence," she said. "If the defendant here would've paid attention, then he may have not had all the run-ins with the law that he has had over the years."

On the other hand, she noted, in the 14 years since the attack, she’s maintained a successful 20-year marriage and earned a master’s degree, teaching at both the elementary school and college levels.

“He prayed upon vulnerable women, stalked them, and then broke into their homes or ran after them to fulfill his twisted and devilish fantasies,” she said. “I have to just wonder what fantasies that some others that are already in prison may have and how this defendant may become their vulnerable bait.

"Kind of curious — would that be considered ironic or would that be considered karma?”

The final woman to speak was just a child when Bowden violated her.

"Darold Bowden broke into my home with the intent of raping me. My room was that of a teenager and there was no denying it. Covered in posters and movie stubs and football tickets and pictures of my friends, my room was my safe haven and Darold Wayne Bowden desecrated it," she said. "Staring down at me, he must have seen that my sheets were covered in cartoons.

"Even in the face of what was clearly a child's room, his depravity could not be deterred."

In the wake of the attack, the now-30-year-old woman said, she dropped out of high school, became entangled in an abusive relationship and began to self-harm because she hated her body for not fighting "hard enough." By her early 20s, she said, she was plotting suicide.

But that darkness has subsided over the years. Now, she said, she’s attending college and on the dean’s list, and she is in a loving marriage.

“By all accounts, my life is good, yet I am still haunted by the ghost of that night … But today is different. Today, the tides have turned … I have been shackled to my past, suffering for half of my life at the hands of Darold Bowden's sickness — a man so desperate for validation that he raped a crying child in her bed while begging her to say that she enjoyed it.

"But today, I will walk out of this courthouse free to live the life that was stolen so many years ago. I am returning the shackles that Darold placed on me half a lifetime ago.”

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Darold Wayne Bowden sentenced to more than 22 years in prison as Ramsey Street rapist