Man said he shot someone

By Linda Cicoira

Last August, an Accomack man told his uncle he had shot someone. According to testimony in the county’s circuit court Thursday, the nephew planned to steal a truck and flee.

Forty-three-year-old Joshua Kendall Bowen was listed in court records as living in Melfa but testimony described him as residing on Custis Street in Wachapreague. After disclosing his intention to his uncle, Bowen gathered enough clothes to fill a trash bag.

The uncle told authorities he was afraid Bowen was having a mental episode so he called the police, Assistant Prosecutor Michael Baker said. The defendant then barricaded himself behind an upstairs door in the Wachapreague home.

Baker said, “Eventually, he came out and was placed in custody.” The uncle told authorities he had a gun hidden away upstairs between mattresses that Bowen wasn’t aware of. But Bowen said he found it under a pillow, the prosecutor said.

The weapon had not been fired recently and no one was reported injured or dead.

The stolen truck was abandoned on the road. Damage was caused when Bowen tried to separate the vehicle from a boat trailer.

In a plea bargain, Judge Lynwood W. Lewis Jr. gave Bowen a five-year suspended sentence for grand theft auto and ordered him to pay $536 in restitution. The judge sentenced him to the mandatory two years in prison for possession of a gun by a nonviolent felon. Charges of obstruction and driving on a suspended license were not prosecuted.

In connection with an October 2023 incident that occurred at the jail, Bowen pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction, which was reduced from felony assaulting an officer. He was sentenced to six months in jail for that offense. Bowen will be on three years of supervised probation when he is released from custody.

He wore an orange Virginia Beach Jail jumpsuit in court and changed his plea twice before the case was heard.