Texas Execution Information Center

Execution Report: Lester Bower

Lester Bower
Lester Bower
Executed on 3 June 2015

Lester Leroy Bower Jr., 67, was executed by lethal injection on 3 June 2015 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of four men during the theft of an aircraft.

Bob Tate owned a ranch in Sherman, Texas, about 65 miles north of Dallas. He had an aircraft hangar on the property and an ultralight aircraft that he was trying to sell. He enlisted the aid of Philip Good to help him sell the plane. Good placed an advertisement in "Glider Rider" magazine, offering the plane for sale for $4,000.

On 5 October 1983, Good returned home from Tate's ranch and told his wife, Marlene, that he had just shown the plane to someone and had thought he had made a sale. He was supposed to meet the man at Tate's ranch again on 8 October, when they were to complete the sale and the man was going to pick up the plane.

Philip Good spent most of the day on 8 October helping Jerry Brown build an ultralight in Good's hanger. Marlene spent the day with Ronald Mayes' wife. At about 3:30 p.m., Philip called Marlene to tell her that he was on his way to Tate's ranch to meet the buyer at 4:00 p.m. Mayes left to go to the ranch at 4:30 p.m.

As of 6:30 p.m., none of the men had returned, and their wives were concerned. Marlene Good drove to the hangar and saw all of the vehicles parked outside. The door to the hangar was locked. She saw no one around and returned home.

At about 7:30 p.m., Tate's wife, Bobbi, and her stepson went to check on the men. They saw vehicles belonging to Tate, Good, and Mayes outside. The hangar was locked, and they saw no lights showing through from the inside. Bobbi Tate unlocked the hangar door and went inside. She and her stepson saw the body of Ronald Mayes, 39, in a pool of blood. After police arrived, they found the bodies of Bob Tate, 51, Jerry Brown, 52, and Philip Good, 29, rolled inside some carpet. Each had been shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber firearm at close range. Mayes had been shot once in the head and multiple times in the upper torso, also with a .22. The scattered placement of the spent bullet casings on the floor suggested that the murder weapon was a semiautomatic firearm.

The plane was missing from the hangar. The victims' wallets and jewelry were not stolen.

A forensics examination of the shell casings collected from the scene and the eleven bullets retrieved from the victims' bodies showed that they were .22-caliber, subsonic, hollow-point bullets manufactured by Julio Fiocchi. The tests indicated that they were fired from either an AR-7 rifle, a Ruger semiautomatic pistol, or a High Standard semiautomatic pistol. The weapon was equipped with a sound suppressor or "silencer." (Subsonic ammunition makes less noise than regular ammunition and is commonly used in conjunction with suppressors.)

By investigating telephone logs, authorities located Lester Bower, then 35, who had called Good in response to the magazine advertisement. Bower told FBI investigators that he had called Good, but decided not to purchase the plane, and had no further contact with him. He denied ever having met either Good or Tate.

Police subsequently obtained a warrant to search Bower's home. Several pieces of the missing plane were found in his garage, including two ultralight aircraft wheels with Tate's name scratched on the rims. Jerry Brown's fingerprint was found on a piece of aluminum tubing from the plane. Bower was arrested on 19 January 1984.

Evidence presented at trial showed that Bower owned numerous handguns and long guns of various brands and calibers. He had also made a purchase from Catawba Enterprises, a company that dealt almost exclusively in silencers. The U.S. distributor for Julio Fiocchi ammunition testified that his company shipped three boxes of Fiocchi .22 long rifle subsonic hollow point ammunition to Bower in February 1982 and five more boxes in December 1982. A Dallas County firearms examiner and an FBI firearms examiner both testified that Fiocchi ammunition was so rare that neither of them had never encountered it before.

Bower did not offer an alibi for his whereabouts on the afternoon of the murders. His wife, Shari, testified at his trial that he left their home at 6:30 a.m. to go bow hunting and returned about 6:30 p.m.

Bower had no prior criminal history.

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