Man accused of stabbing woman to death Sunday has a violent history.
At age 18, he beat up a man and sucker-punched the man’s daughter outside their Concord home. At 22, he battered a victim in Walnut Creek. Three years later, while robbing an El Cerrito grocery store, he threatened a security guard with a box cutter and a fake gun.
Long before he was accused of stabbing 18-year-old Nia Wilson to death Sunday night at Oakland’s MacArthur BART Station, John Lee Cowell was trouble. He was in and out of jail and repeatedly harassed and threatened people, some of whom obtained restraining orders, court records show.
But even as a picture emerged of the 27-year-old Cowell as he sat in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on Tuesday, awaiting a decision on potential charges by Alameda County prosecutors, the motive in this week’s seemingly unprovoked stabbing of Wilson and her sister — who survived — remained elusive.
Some shocked community members, including hundreds who took to the streets of Oakland Monday night, have questioned whether the attack was racially motivated, because Cowell is white and Wilson was black. But BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said investigators have not found evidence — at least not yet — of a hate crime.
And Cowell, who was described as transient, appears to have a history of mental illness, having once been evaluated for competence to stand trial and participate in the proceedings, according to court records. His family told KRON-TV in a statement that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
One thing is certain: Those who have encountered Cowell in the past aren’t surprised he would do something terrible.
“I wish he would get the death penalty for what he did to that poor little girl. She didn’t deserve it,” said 51-yearold Shane Glick, the man who was beaten up by Cowell and three other teens outside his Concord home nearly a decade ago.
Cowell, who is expected to be arraigned Wednesday in an Oakland courtroom, was arrested roughly 21 hours after the attack on Wilson and her 26-year-old sister, Lahtifa Wilson. BART police said the suspect returned to the transit system Monday and was nabbed on an Antioch-bound train after being spotted by riders who alerted officers.
BART police were already familiar with Cowell and had confronted him for fare evasion just four days before the stabbing, officials said.
The killing has raised questions about safety on BART, which has seen violent crime go up 69 percent in the past decade. The slaying was the third possible homicide in recent days on the system.
Before allegedly graduating to homicide, Cowell was known as a troubled kid in a gritty neighborhood in Concord. He and other teens would hang out at Hillcrest Community Park near Glick’s home, about a tenth of a mile from where Cowell lived with his family at the Adobe Mobile Lodge mobile-home park.
Glick said that when he confronted the group in 2009 about his home being burglarized, they began their beating. When his daughter came outside while on the phone with police, Cowell sucker-punched
her. He was charged with felony assault.
At the mobile-home park on Tuesday, a resident named Ty, who would not give his last name, described Cowell’s violent behavior over the past 12 years, saying, “He just wasn’t in a normal state of mind.”
“He would come and would just start disrespecting his dad,” who lived at the park for many years, Ty said. “His dad would try to keep it cool, and he would bring him in and let him stay the night and visit, but inevitably it would turn into something. It got physical.”
In 2013, Cowell was convicted of battery for an attack in Walnut Creek. Two years later, he was arrested for being under the influence of methamphetamine and sentenced to 90 days in jail, records show.
Cowell eventually became homeless. In 2015, an aunt filed for a restraining order against him in Contra Costa County Superior Court after he came into her home “under the influence of drugs and yelled and threatened me,” she wrote.
The aunt and many of Cowell’s other relatives did not return phone calls Tuesday. One family member who declined to comment said he had not spoken to Cowell for 12 to 15 years.
In April 2016, Cowell walked into the emergency room at Kaiser Hospital in Richmond and verbally accosted the receptionist, she said.
“Where the f— is my backpack?” he was quoted as saying in an application for a restraining order filed by the woman. “How the f— do you not know where it is you crack headed bitch?”
The woman said she was familiar with Cowell, who repeatedly “threatens my life.”
A month later, Cowell stole several items from a Lucky store at 1000 El Cerrito Plaza, pulling a replica gun and a box cutter on a guard who tried to stop him. In that case, police reported arresting Cowell in a familiar place — on the platform of the El Cerrito BART Station.
At one point, Cowell’s competency to participate in his own defense was questioned, but the case continued. He was sentenced to two years in prison and sent to state lockup in October 2016. He was released in early May, less than three months before the BART attack.
Cowell’s family said he served part or all of his term in the state psychiatric hospital in Atascadero (San Luis Obispo County), was released directly from there and was “living on the streets without proper treatment.”
“The system has failed in this instance,” the family told KRON-TV. “This is in no way an excuse for this senseless and vicious attack.”
A resident of the Concord mobile-home park, 38-year-old Primitivo Alvarado, said Cowell had returned to his old ways after his prison stint. He said that after he spotted Cowell trying to break into his unit last month, he installed surveillance cameras, which showed Cowell attempting to gain entry again.
“I opened my window (curtain) a little and it’s this guy in the window,” he said Tuesday, pointing to Cowell’s mugshot. “It’s scary to know this kind of person was trying to break in. That’s why I bought those cameras. I had nobody to protect my four daughters and my wife while I was at work.”