Bond set at $500,000 for man charged in cold case murder

Robert Bowman is arraigned in Toledo Municipal Court in Toledo, Ohio, Tuesday, October 28, 2008. He is charged in the 1967 murder of Eileen Adams. Public defender James MacHarg is at left.

Bond was set at $500,000 during an arraignment Tuesday morning for a former Toledo man charged with the 1967 murder of 14-year-old Eileen Adams.

Robert Bowman, 72, is charged with aggravated murder for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Miss Adams, who disappeared Dec. 18, 1967, after riding a bus from Central Catholic High School to a West Toledo neighborhood where relatives lived.

Miss Adams’ brother, Al Adams, sat in the second row of the court room during the arraignment. Mr. Adams, his wife, and another female were escorted out of the courtroom after Bowman’s brief appearance by Detective Bart Beavers.

Miss Adams clothed, frozen body was found 43 days later in Whiteford Township, bound and wrapped inside a mattress cover and a braided rug.

Bowman had been a suspect in the case since 1981 but was not charged until two years ago, when DNA samples from Miss Adams’s underwear were tested. He was arrested Oct. 2 in Cathedral City, Calif., and waived extradition during a hearing four days later.

Bowman was transported to Toledo Monday.