Remains found in woods identified as child who went missing 20 years ago, VA cops say

The remains of a child who was missing for more than 20 years was identified after human remains were found in Virginia, deputies said.

Carroll County Sheriff’s Office found the remains in a wooded area in Galax on Sept. 6, 2022, according to a Dec. 21 news release. Over a year later, the sheriff’s office has received identification of who the remains belonged to: a missing 5-year-old boy.

The remains appeared to have been in the woods for an “extended period of time,” according to the sheriff’s office. The next step after finding the remains was to identify them, deputies said.

The remains were sent to Othram, Inc., a Texas forensic genealogy company, which created a “full DNA profile,” deputies said. The profile then matched to two family members of the 5-year-old and identified the remains as belonging to Logan Nathaniel Bowman, according to the sheriff’s office.

Logan was a 5-year-old boy who had vanished in Grayson County in January 2003, according to deputies. It was a decadeslong disappearance that had haunted his father, Alvin Bowman, who told WFXR in February that he wanted to find his son to “get it over with.”

“So, I can have my proper burial. We got a little headstone up there at church for him. It’s got his picture on it,” Alvin Bowman told WFXR.

Logan was described by his father as a “good kid” who loved school and going to church, WFXR reported.

When he disappeared, his biological mother Cynthia Davis and her boyfriend at the time, Dennis Schermerhorn, were charged in connection to the child’s missing status, according to the sheriff’s office.

The couple was charged with child neglect, in which Davis pleaded guilty, and Schermerhorn was found guilty in 2003, according to Grayson Circuit Court records. Schermerhorn also pleaded guilty to an assault charge and was found guilty of petit larceny in 2003, court records show.

“They have to answer to God, not me,” Alvin Bowman told WFXR. “You have to forgive them. That’s one thing you have to learn to do.”

The sheriff’s office will continue its investigation into Bowman’s death, and new charges may be filed.

Galax is near the Virginia-North Carolina border, about 90 miles northwest from Greensboro, North Carolina.

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