FORNEY, Texas — An Iraq War veteran’s therapeutic golf clubs and other belongings will soon be returned to him after they were stolen out of his garage in late July.
FORNEY, Texas — An Iraq War veteran’s therapeutic golf clubs and other belongings will soon be returned to him after they were stolen out of his garage in late July.
The Forney Police Department made an initial arrest in the case on Thursday, July 30, 2015, after surveillance video was distributed of a man allegedly breaking into Army Sergeant Kevin Bowden garage at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Police identified 22-year-old Lance Pernell Williams as the person arrested Thursday who was the person captured on surveillance video burglarizing the home. He has been charged with burglary of a habitation, a second-degree felony, on a $35,000 bond. Williams' brother, 26-year-old Larry Donnell Williams, was later arrested and charged with theft, a state jail felony, and is pending arraignment.
Forney Police Department detectives served a search warrant at the Williams' just a few doors down the street from Bowden after a Craigslist sale of the golf clubs alerted police. The man who purchased the golf clubs is cooperating with the investigation and will not face any charges.
Police seized nearly all of Bowden’s stolen property from the Williams' home and a vehicle parked at the home where they were serving the search warrant, according to Forney Police Department Captain Jason "Rocky" Ray.
Bowden says this is the third time, since February, his garage has been broken in to and the second time his golf clubs had been stolen.
The clubs provide a sense of security, a “grounding” tool, for the veteran who was injured in a roadside bomb in Iraq and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — playing golf with other wounded warriors on their path to recovery.
Ironically, Bowden says he is typically in the garage around the time of the burglary, checking and securing his family’s home. “Last night was one of the rare nights I actually slept for more that a couple hours,” he told inForney.com on Wednesday.
“The knowledge that this person was in my house while my wife, two young boys, and I were sleeping is completely unnerving,” he said. “I feel like I failed to protect my family.”
Bowden says the clubs were gifts to him for therapy and back injuries and the latest set was gifted to him on Fathers’ Day.
In July 2012, Bowden and his family were presented a home in the Diamond Creek neighborhood of Forney through a partnership with Bank of America and Military Warriors Support Foundation, a story inForney.com covered at the time. Bowden served two tours in Iraq before sustaining a traumatic brain injury in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq in April 2008.