Man Who Chopped Up Ex-Girlfriend and Her Fiance Stands Trial

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — A suburban Detroit man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her fiance then chopping off their heads and limbs and dumping their remains into the Detroit River must stand trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Allen Park District Court Judge John Courtright said at a preliminary examination that there is enough evidence to try Roger Bowling, 39, in the murder of 32-year-old Danielle Greenway and 42-year-old Chris Hall.

Border Patrol agents and the U.S. Coast Guard found the bodies of Greenaway and Hall floating in the Detroit River and an adjoining canal July 17. The same morning, a man fishing in the river on Detroit’s east side spotted legs, a saw and a suitcase submerged in about 10 feet of water along a seawall. The couple had last been seen three days earlier.
Bowling, who was arrested July 19, had once been in a relationship with Greenaway and had been living with her and Hall at their home in Allen Park just west of Detroit for about a month before the killings.
Investigators, who determined the couple had been shot to death and dismembered in their home, found bullet holes and blood at the property. But efforts had been made to hide evidence of the slayings, assistant Wayne County prosecutor Raj Prasad said.

“There’s not blood everywhere,” Prasad said. “It’s not a house where there is forced entry or where there is blood and bullets. This is a cleaned up house. The only person who would want to clean up the house and hide the crime scene is the person who is still living there. Mr. Bowling is the only person who could have committed this crime.”

A yellow-handled circular saw found in the river with the dismembered legs matched other tools of the same brand found in the Allen Park home, Prasad told Courtright. Defense attorney Mark L. Brown said there was no evidence linking Bowling to the saw or the killings. “Mr. Bowling lived in the house. The tools were in the house,” Brown said. “That doesn’t make him the person who used them.”

Bowling will be arraigned Sept. 5 in Wayne County Circuit Court on murder and other charges.