Officer James Neal Bowers was 32 and a seven-year veteran of the Columbus Police Department when he responded to a robbery at the Majik Market on N. Lumpkin Road on April 4, 1979. He had been finishing a shift and was planning a career change into law; the results of his Bar exam arrived after his death and showed he had passed, and he was honored at the law school graduation ceremony posthumously.

Bowers was shot and killed during the robbery, leaving a wife and a five-year-old son. Two juveniles, described as 15 and 16 years old, were arrested in connection with the case; one was identified as William S. Lewis III. Both were later sentenced to life in prison for the robbery and Bowers’s death.

Did anyone in Columbus know Officer Bowers or the Majik Market that night and have details that could add to the record?