Differing opinions

A former Adams County prosecutor and University of Illinois football star now facing murder charges walked free more than eight years ago after an autopsy on his wife failed to determine a cause of death.

Dr. Jessica Bowman, so discredited in Sangamon County that prosecutors won’t use her as a witness, performed the autopsy on Cory Lovelace after she died on Valentine’s Day in 2006. Bowman couldn’t determine a cause of death. Prosecutors are basing murder charges on the work of other pathologists who determined that the 38-year-old Quincy woman had been suffocated.

Curtis Lovelace, 45, told investigators at the time that his wife, whom he found dead in bed, had not been feeling well. He was arrested late last month and is being held on $5 million bail.

The Adams County coroner has refused to release records in the case, but multiple sources have told Illinois Times that Bowman conducted the autopsy on Cory Lovelace, whose body was cremated. Ed Parkinson, special prosecutor with the Illinois State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor who has been assigned the case, confirmed that Bowman conducted the autopsy and failed to establish a cause of death.

“That’s why it’s been an open case for eight years,” Parkinson said.

This isn’t Parkinson’s first case involving Bowman. In 2010, Parkinson was assigned a murder case against Mason Weems, who ultimately pleaded guilty in the killing of Anakin Credit, a two-year-old Springfield boy whose 2008 death was blamed on a rare, previously undiagnosed form of cancer by Bowman, who conducted the autopsy for the Sangamon County coroner’s office. After Bowman concluded that Credit had died of natural causes, police closed the case, but it was re-opened by the inspector general for the state Department of Children and Family Services. Weems was charged after two forensic pathologists retained by the state determined that Credit, who had a lacerated liver, was either strangled or died from a blow to his abdomen.

Initially charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a child, Weems pleaded guilty to the latter charge and received a 20-year sentence. At the time, Parkinson said that differing conclusions by pathologists and the lack of police investigation after Bowman determined that Credit died from cancer contributed to the decision to negotiate a plea bargain.

Parkinson has told the Associated Press that the condition of Cory Lovelace's body should have told investigators that something was wrong. He said that he’s confident in his case against Curtis Lovelace and that it’s too soon to tell what hurdles, if any, Bowman’s work might pose to prosecutors.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be a hurdle,” Parkinson said. “We’re going to lay it all out there. I feel all right about the evidence. … We have our opinions now from our experts. We wouldn’t have proceeded without experts. This is probably going to be another battle of the experts.”

Bowman is now a pathologist in Iowa, where she obtained a medical license in 2012, after the Credit case caused an uproar in Sangamon County. Coroner Susan Boone, who had stood by Bowman and resisted calls to use a different pathologist, was forced to resign in 2011 by county officials -- including the sheriff, state’s attorney and county board chairman -- who threatened to abolish the coroner’s office if she didn’t leave on her own. Sangamon County state’s attorney John Milhiser said that he would not call Bowman as a witness in murder cases and had her work in pending cases reviewed by a different pathologist.

Bowman has conducted autopsies in several high-profile cases. She concluded that A. Paul Carlock, who died after a 2007 struggle with Sangamon County jailers, had succumbed to a heart attack, but physicians hired by his family disputed that conclusion, and the county this year settled a lawsuit brought by Carlock’s widow for $2.6 million. In 2010, Bowman said that Patrick Burns, who died after sheriff’s deputies deployed Tasers more than 20 times while subduing him, had died from a “textbook case” of excited delirium, but an inquest jury ruled the cause undetermined, and a pathologist hired by Burns’ family concluded he had died from lack of oxygen. A wrongful death lawsuit is pending against the county in federal court.

Bowman had conducted autopsies for several central Illinois counties in addition to Sangamon County. She is now working as a pathologist in Keokuk, Iowa. She declined comment.

“No, I’ve already talked to reporters,” Bowman said. “You have a nice day. Bye bye.”

James Keller, Adams County coroner, said that he did not know how many autopsies Bowman performed for his office. Keller said that the county was using a different pathologist when he became coroner in 2010. Keller worked for the coroner’s office when Cory Lovelace died and responded to the scene in 2006. He declined to say whether he had an opinion on the quality of Bowman’s work in the Lovelace case.

“I guess I’m really not going to comment on anything at this point, until the trial,” Keller said.

Cory Lovelace married her husband and accused murderer in 1991. Both she and Curtis Lovelace graduated from Quincy High School in 1986. Curtis went on to become a star center for the University of Illinois football team, becoming a starter in his sophomore season. He was a team captain and was named to the first All Big Ten team. He went to law school at the University of Illinois and was admitted to the bar in 1994. He was in private practice at the time of his arrest, but had worked as an assistant state's attorney in Adams County, where he had also served on the Quincy School District Board. He is a captain in the Illinois National Guard and has remarried twice since Cory Lovelace died.

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].