Irish computer executive accused of stabbing wife

By Patrick Markey

Michael and David Bowers had driven to a coffee shop a short distance from their California home when the call came through Michael’s cellular phone. It was their father Colman Bowers. There was an emergency at the house and the boys should come straight back home, he told them.

Their father met them in the garage as the two young men arrived. They could not have expected what they heard next.

“I took a nap with your mother. And when I woke up I killed her. I don’t know what happened,” Bowers told his oldest son Michael, according to police.

That was two weeks ago. On Monday, Colman Bowers, an Irish computer executive, appeared in Santa Clara County Court to face charges he stabbed his wife, Georgina Bowers, to death with a kitchen knife in the couple’s home.

Bowers, 45, has been charged with one count of homicide and is being held without bail at Santa Clara County Jail, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office said. His arraignment and preliminary hearings have been postponed to March 8 while details of his legal representation are cleared up, according to Deputy District Attorney Terry Bowman, of the county’s domestic violence unit.

Santa Clara police said Colman Bowers had arrived from Ireland 12 years ago and secured a lucrative position as an executive vice president of a Silicon Valley computer company. The family lived in a middle-class neighborhood about 60 miles from San Francisco.

Police are still trying to piece together what happened in the two hours between the sons leaving for the coffee shop at 3 p.m. and their father’s call at around 5 p.m. But they do charge that at some time on February 7, Bowers allegedly stabbed his wife once in the chest with a serrated carving knife.

After the two boys entered their home, they found their mother’s body in a back bedroom with a single stab wound to the chest, police said. Investigators found blood on the bed, and inside the bathroom, the 8-inch knife they believe was used in the killing.

A patrol car responding to a 911 emergency call found Colman Bowers outside the family home. As they pulled into the driveway, he shouted out, “You’re looking for me,” according to police.

Detectives are still investigating the motive for the stabbing. But they are looking at the possibility there had been household arguments over Bower’s drinking and gambling habits, and his trips to casinos in Reno and Nevada. Recently, police said, those arguments culminated in some discussion over whether Georgina Bowers would return to Ireland. She wanted to leave, but her husband was intent on staying in California.