Suspect admits killing girlfriend
Pleads guilty to murder in Saugerties shooting death
The man accused of fatally shooting his estranged girlfriend last May in Saugerties pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Friday.
Karon Bowden, 42, entered his plea in Ulster County Court three days before his trial was to begin.
In pleading guilty, Bowden admitted he killed Amy L. Burger, 21, the night of May 31, 2016, in his apartment at 26 Randle Court in Saugerties.
With Burger’s mother and sister looking on, Bowden simply an-
swered “Yes” when Ulster County Court Judge Donald A. Williams asked whether he intended to kill Burger when he shot her.
Authorities said at the time that Bowden shot Burger with a handgun during a domestic dispute in the apartment and that the weapon was recovered.
The Ulster County District Attorney’s Office said Friday that Bowden and Burger had lived together for more than three years and that she had decided to break off the relationship. Authorities said previously that there was a history of domestic violence between the two and that Bowden had a prior criminal record.
Williams agreed to allow Bowden to plead guilty, despite, he said, his belief that “offenses of this significance should be explored publicly.”
“I truly understand what the family of the victim has gone through,” the judge said, adding that, “at the request of the victim’s family and with the support of the district attorney, I’m willing to allow [Bowden] to plead guilty.”
Ulster County Senior Assistant District Attorney Katherine Van Loan said Burger’s family requested that Bowden be allowed to plead guilty in order to avoid putting the family “through the trauma and ordeal” of a trial and to protect Burger and her family from potentially being portrayed in a negative light in testimony.
Van Loan said that while the family understood that as a result of the plea bargain, Bowden would be sentenced to less than the maximum of 25 years to life in state prison, they hoped the judge would sentence Bowden to more than the minimum of 20 years to life.
“All I am willing to offer is that [Bowden] will not receive the maximum sentence,” Williams said. “I will listen to arguments at the time of sentencing, I will review the presentence report, I will closely review or listen to the statements the family wishes to make and then, and only then, will I make my determination.”
Bowden’s sentencing is scheduled for May 24.
During a preliminary hearing shortly after the shooting, Saugerties Police Officer Ryan Hampel testified that when he arrived at Bowden’s apartment last May 31 in response to a 911 call, he heard “a loud pop” he assumed was a gunshot.
He said there was no traffic in or out of the complex and that he approached the door of the apartment knocked and waited. Bowden, Hampel said, came out of another door of the building with his hands up and a cell phone in his right hand.
Hampel said that when he asked Bowden what was happening, Bowden responded, “Domestic dispute. I had an argument with my girlfriend.”
Hampel said when he entered the apartment, he found Burger’s lifeless body face up on the floor with a single gunshot wound to the face.
Burger’s family did not comment following the proceeding Friday. In a post on the Freeman’s Facebook page following the fatal shooting, a woman named Mindy Williams, who identified herself as Burger’s mother, wrote: “Words cannot express how I feel right now. All I have is my children, and now one has been taken from me because of jealousy. Without Amy, how are we going to survive? ... [She was] so full of life and love for everyone. Love you, Amy ... my beautiful angel.”
The homicide was the second killing in Saugerties in the span of less than a week. On May 26, 2016, in an unrelated case, Rameen Perry, 40, of Port Ewen, was fatally stabbed in an apartment on Malden Avenue in Saugerties.
The suspect in that killing, Earl T. Edwards, 26, of Saugerties, was arrested later the same day on a train in Washington, D.C., and he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Feb. 28.
Before the two killings last May, there hadn’t been a homicide in Saugerties since a fatal shooting in September 2007.