TV program Sunday revisits Becky Stowe’s murder

Published 10:59 pm Thursday, September 22, 2011

A Niles homicide case will be the subject of an episode of “Unusual Suspects” Sunday at 10 p.m.

Attorney Scott Teter, who handled the case as Cass County prosecutor, informed the Daily News Thursday that the episode about the Becky Stowe homicide case, People V. Robert Leamon Jr., will broadcast on the Investigation Discovery Channel.

The hour-long episode is titled “Where’s Becky?”

According to court documents, the defendant, 16-year-old Robert Leamon Jr., was accused of killing 15-year-old Rebecca Stowe, who disappeared on July 13, 1993 — the day after she informed the defendant she was pregnant with his child and would not have an abortion.

Leamon and Stowe lived about a mile apart in Niles and attended Brandywine High School. Stowe’s remains were found buried on Leamon’s uncle’s farm on Oct. 15, 1995.

According to newspaper reports found online, the day Leamon learned of his girlfriend’s pregnancy, he and a cousin drove to his uncle’s farm between Niles and Cassopolis and dug a deep hole, with Leamon remarking, “That’s big enough to bury the bitch.” The cousin assumed Leamon was joking about his intentions.

After Stowe’s death, Leamon told an ex-girlfriend he rekindled a relationship with, Angela Snyder, that he committed the murder. She eventually told her parents of his confession, and they contacted police.

Teter said Lemon had often referred to Stowe as “low-class,” and told police and psychiatrists different accounts of her death, trying to make it appear an accident.

The defendant subsequently confessed to killing Stowe, still claiming it was an accident.

After a jury trial in Cassopolis in 1997, 19-year-old Leamon was convicted as an adult of first-degree premeditated murder. He was sentenced as an adult to life imprisonment without parole.

After the jury announced the verdict, the victim’s mother, Diane Stowe, said: “Oh God, rest in peace now, Becky, rest in peace. She wants me to go on now, until we meet again.”