McCowan found guilty of murder of ex-girlfriend

VALPARAISO, Ind. — The murder trial of 20-year-old Dustin McCowan ended late Tuesday night.

The prosecution’s case was built on the testimony of a man who saw someone matching McCowan’s description walking away from the scene, on the cellphone records and the accounts of his friends and neighbors and on what the prosecution described as many little clues pointing toward his guilt.

No hairs, fibers or fingerprints connected him to the murder scene. No murder weapon was ever found.

“This was largely a circumstantial case,” Porter County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Matt Frost said Wednesday.

“To think that of the 90 plus pieces of DNA evidence that they submitted to the FBI lab, not a single shred of it pointed to Dustin committing this crime, that is certainly significant,” McCowan’s attorney John Vouga said.

McCowan was accused of shooting Amanda Bach, his 19-year-old former girlfriend, in the throat at close range and dumping her body by the railroad tracks behind his home in 2011. He was arrested near McNutt Quad hours after her body was found.

Around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, a Porter County jury found McCowan guilty.

“He can’t kill again,” Amanda Bach’s mother, Sandra Bach, said as she left the courthouse Tuesday night. “There’s no doubt in our mind that if he was out there, he would do this to some other girl.”

McCowan’s family and supporters remain convinced the real killer is yet to be found.
During closing arguments the family wore purple bracelets with the words “Supporting the Innocent” and “Psalm 7:6.”

“Arise, O Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice.”

According to court documents, Bach went missing in the early hours of Friday, Sept. 16, 2011. Her car was found abandoned in the parking lot of Dean’s General Store in Wheeler, Ind., her purse and identification still inside.

McCowan, the last person known to have seen her alive, told police he spent two and a half hours with her the night she disappeared. While Bach was still missing the next afternoon, McCowan traveled south to Bloomington with three friends for a previously scheduled trip.  

By Saturday, search parties were looking for Bach. Police received a tip from Nicholas Proncho, who lived near McCowan and told them to search the railroad tracks near McCowan’s house where he said his fiancé had seen young women in the past.

Proncho and two officers discovered Bach’s body south of those tracks. She was naked except for a pair of underwear, laying on her back, with her legs splayed at an awkward angle — the left one curled so her foot touched her buttock, the right laying flat and bent with the knee out. Inexplicably, five shirts and a bra were wrapped around one hand.

IU Police Department arrested McCowan near McNutt Quad that Saturday evening. He was transported back to Porter County and formally charged with murder Sept. 19.

Police collected several pieces of evidence from the scene that became key to the prosecution’s case. Two black flip flops were found between the body and McCowan’s house, suggesting a trail to the body.

An orange shirt with a faded stain was found near the railroad tracks after McCowan’s arrest. DNA testing revealed the stain was Bach’s blood, but no DNA from the wearer was found inside. Prosecutors said it matches another shirt McCowan was wearing when arrested. Bach’s cellphone was never recovered.

When interviewed, McCowan’s father, a Crown Point, Ind., police officer, told police that a 38-caliber handgun like the one used to kill Amanda Bach was missing from his home.

During the trial, which lasted four weeks, jurors heard from more than 50 witnesses — friends of the victim and defendant, neighbors, forensic experts, police officers and two inmates who testified that McCowan gave them information about the murder while in jail. One said McCowan admitted to shooting a young woman who “crossed him,” while the other testified he’d given him information about stashing her missing
cellphone.

Another witness testified to seeing a young man matching his description walking away from the area where Bach’s car was found in the early morning after her murder.
The driver’s seat was adjusted to a height that was taller than Bach was.

Although not required to prove motive, during closing arguments Tuesday, the prosecution suggested two — that McCowan either killed Amanda Bach because of his jealousy about her budding relationship with his friend or because he feared she
was pregnant.

McCowan’s attorney Nicholas Barnes disputed both suggestions and proposed another scenario. He said Bach’s body, and in particular the five shirts wrapped around her wrist, indicate she was abducted and killed after leaving McCowan’s home. In his closing arguments, he asked jurors to close their eyes and imagine themselves being invited on a boat named “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.” He said that boat had too many holes to take them to “Guilty Island.”

He attacked both the local police department’s investigation of the case — McCowan was the only suspect from whom DNA samples were taken or evidence was examined — and the scientific validity of the state’s case, including forensic evidence and the technology used to trace McCowan’s cellphone to a location near that of Bach’s abandoned car.  

Barnes pointed out there was no DNA evidence linking Bach’s body or her vehicle to McCowan and accused the prosecution of deceiving the jury. He also disputed the prosecution’s timeline and said the murder was staged to implicate McCowan. He pointed the finger at Proncho, the man who helped police locate Bach’s body.

In the state’s closing, Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek reminded jurors of the testimony of friends who said McCowan showed little emotion at news of Bach’s death and said he would take a shot in her honor during his trip to Bloomington. They also pointed to the account of McCowan’s neighbor, Linda Phillips, who reported hearing a man and woman saying “Amanda, get up, come on, Amanda, get up,” multiple times the night she went missing.

Polarek used cellphone text messages to show that McCowan put off visiting a friend on the night of her murder. Polarek displayed two images of Bach’s body — one autopsy photo showing she brought her hand up to protect herself, and one showing the placement of her body.

“That body was dumped where Dustin McCowan dumped his garbage,” Polarek said.

A group of Bach supporters gathered outside the courthouse during closing arguments and the jury’s deliberation. Inside the courtroom, her family crowded one side of the small gallery. The Bachs wore pink, purple and zebra stripes — Amanda Bach’s favorite colors. Many wore buttons with her face, like the ones supportive parents wear at football games.

Across the aisle, McCowan’s family wore purple, matching the defendant’s necktie and their bracelets.

While District 2 Superior Court Judge William Alexa read the verdict, both families clutched each others’ hands for support. The Bach family held a recent photo of Amanda. At the reading of the guilty verdict, McCowan’s mother and sisters sobbed, and McCowan hung his head.

Outside the courthouse, Bach’s family met a group of supporters who cheered every time someone emerged from the building. As they hugged and cried together, a van drove past.

“The real killer will be found,” a woman cried from the van’s window. “This isn’t over.”