Ilene Gowan.Photo:Council Bluffs Police Department
Council Bluffs Police Department
Ilene Gowan’s body was found covered in snow under an overpass in Iowa in February. The man accused of strangling her to death, Ivan “Sam” Brammer — her on- and off-again lover — was just charged with second-degree murder in connection with her death earlier this month.
Her glasses, purse, cellphone and a safe with $1,200 were also gone, the outlet reports. Brammer allegedly deposited $1,200 into his account on Feb. 15, police said, according to the newspaper.
Jack Kilgore, Gowan’s son, often visits a cross staked where her body was found.
“We were praying all this time for this, for the day that the charge came,” Kilgoretold 6News WOWT. He added: “It’s a relief now that he’s going to pay, or have his day in court. Until then, justice won’t be served, at least not for me.”
Brammer is being held at Pottawattamie County Jail on a $500,000 bond. It’s not immediately clear if he has an attorney.
The day before her body was found – her tooth broken, a “significant” L-shaped cut on her head, and her entire body bruised according to an initial autopsy – Brammer sold his truck to a scrapyard, where it was destroyed.
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Police also allege that Brammer threatened Gowan’s son, telling him that his grandmother would have to “pay for two funerals” if he kept digging, according to theOmaha World-Herald. At the time, law enforcement was still looking for Gowan’s body.
But the family didn’t stop asking questions. The murder charge tacked onto his case Aug. 9 came at the behest of Gowan’s family, who called in a second opinion for a previously-inconclusive autopsy in May which recorded an unknown manner of death. Dr. Michael Baden, a high-profile forensic pathologist based in New York determined Gowan had been strangled to death, the newspaper reported.
“I can tell you she loved this man,” Nicole Schipper, Gowan’s daughter, told WOWT. “And he didn’t deserve her love."
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go tothehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
source: people.com
