GALAX, Va. – A chilling discovery, 20 years in the making.
“The truth allows you to turn the page to that next chapter. Maybe getting justice in this case,” Othram Chief Development Officer Dr. Kristen Mittelman said.
Justice that’s been in the works for decades.
Five-year-old Logan Bowman went missing in January of 2003 from Grayson County.
“I hadn’t even gone to the academy yet, I was starting the academy like the next week,” Carroll County Sheriff Kevin Kemp said.
Logan’s remains turned up last year in Galax in the woods off of Iron Ridge Road — something Carroll County Sheriff Kevin Kemp said he’s never seen before.
“These are very rare circumstances that do not happen very often, so we understand the importance and the rarity of this circumstance. So to say I’m not in shock with the outcome I think would be understating it a little bit,” Kemp said.
A man from out of town bought the property and noticed the remains in a trash bag.
“It was a day where I first thought, ‘What if these could be the remains of Logan Bowman?’” Kemp said.
Several months later, the company Othram got involved — a forensic genealogy company based in Texas.
That’s where Chief Development Officer Dr. Kristen Mittelman and her team took over.
“We used forensics genome sequencing on the boy’s remains that were found. And they were found decades later, so you can imagine how much degradation was there,” Mittelman said.
She said the process takes longer the older the DNA, but they were still able to trace it back to Logan — and hopes it leads to further prosecution.
“It’s hard to prosecute a murder if you don’t have a body, because there’s always that doubt brought in,” Mittelman said.
Kemp tells 10 News it’s still too early to decide on charges, but the progress is incredible.
“I want people to know that we don’t give up. And you may not know every little thing going on, it may be quiet for a little while, but this is proof that just because you don’t hear something every single week, it doesn’t mean there’s not work being done,” Kemp said.
This means it’s not the end of Logan’s case. His mother, Cynthia Davis, and her then-boyfriend Dennis Schermerhorn were charged in 2003 by Grayson County in connection with Logan’s disappearance.
Schermerhorn’s charge of felony murder was dismissed in 2004 due to lack of evidence, while Davis was sentenced to 15 years for second-degree murder.
“We’ll do everything we can to press whatever charges need to be pressed,” Kemp said.