- April 18, 2024
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An 18-year-old woman took the witness stand at the county courthouse Feb. 19 to say that defendant Michael Bowling, now 48, had molested her when she stayed at his home for a sleepover visit with her friend, his stepdaughter, in June 2016, when both girls were 15.
It was the second time she's had to testify against him: Bowling was also tried in December, but the jury deadlocked, forcing a new trial. Bowling is charged with lewd and lascivious molestation and lewd and lascivious exhibition.
The victim said it had been her first time over at her friend's home, in the Daytona North community in western Flagler County. The visit started normally: The girls watched TV, played with face masks, tried on homecoming dresses and listened to music.
They were playing cards in the stepdaughter's bedroom when Bowling came into the room at around 11 p.m. or midnight, after his wife had gone to sleep.
Someone — the victim at one point said it was Bowling, and at another point said she was unsure — proposed that whoever had the losing hand for each round complete a "dare" proposed by the winner.
When she lost, Bowling "dared" her, the victim said, to lift up her shirt.
When she hesitated, she said, he pressured her.
"He said, ‘Come on.’ ... I just sat there." Eventually, she gave in.
When she lost another round, he dared her to drop her pants. She did not, saying she had recently started her menstrual cycle. He then told her to bare her breasts under her bra, which she did.
At one point, “He said, 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' … and not to tell anybody," the victim said.
Then, they played a game called "seven minutes of heaven," in which two people would go into a closet with each other for seven minutes.
"He said it would be weird if he went in with his stepdaughter, so it had to be me," the victim said.
There, she said, he put his mouth on her bare breasts. After that, she said, he told the two girls to go into the closet together and kiss. They went into the closet and just sat there, she said. They emerged, and Bowling was outside smoking a cigarette.
The two teens went into the kitchen to get water, the victim said, and her friend noticed that there was a bottle of champagne in the fridge, and began asking Bowling if she could have it.
Bowling, the victim said, told the girls they'd have to "earn it."
He told his stepdaughter to give him a back rub — which, the victim said, the stepdaughter did — but then, the victim told the jury, "He said, '[the victim] over here isn’t helping.'"
Bowling then took the victim into the closet again, the victim said, and stimulated himself sexually.
He then left, and both girls had two glasses of champagne, the victim told the jury. She got sick: She'd never had alcohol before, she said. When she work up at 7 or 8 in the morning, her friend was still asleep, and the family's cars were gone.
She didn't have cell phone with her — her sister was using it for work — so she downloaded a texting app onto the friend's tablet and texted her grandmother, repeatedly, to come get her, stating that she felt sick.
She didn't say anything at the time. But a couple months later, she told a school guidance counselor what happened. She was interviewed by detectives and Department of Children and Families staff, and FCSO crime scene investigation staff went to Bowling's home and checked the bedroom closet for bodily fluids. They found semen, and it matched a DNA sample they collected from Bowling.
Bowling's public defender, William Bookhammer, said the girls' testimony has been conflicting.
"As it unfolds, you’re going see at least 10 to 15 inconsistencies ... describing the same event, but in drastically different ways," Bookhammer said.
The jury was not told Feb. 18 that Bowling is also facing a series of charges for allegedly sexually abusing his stepdaughter dating back to when she was a young child. For the alleged sexual abuse of his stepdaughter, Bowling is charged with six combined counts of molestation, fondling or sexual abuse of a child.
The trial began Monday, Feb. 18, with jury selection and is expected to end on Friday, Feb. 22.
