Losing Jon: A Teen’s Tragic Death, a Police Cover-Up, a Community’s Fight for Justice

A Chilling True Story of Injustice

David Parrish was in disbelief when he learned that nineteen-year-old Jon Bowie’s body had been found hanged from a backstop at the local high school’s baseball field and the death declared a suicide. David had known Jon and his twin brother since they were boys. He had coached them on the baseball field and welcomed them into his home for sleepovers with his own sons. However, when David learned how Jon’s body was found, he felt compelled to find the facts behind the incomprehensible tragedy.

Soon, David would learn of a brutal incident at a local motel where Jon and his brother had been severely beaten by police officers, the charges filed against those officers, and the months of harassment and intimidation Jon and his brother endured. Few in the utopian community of Columbia, Maryland, believed Jon could commit such a final act. Like many others, David wondered how a fateful night of teens blowing off steam could lead to such a tragic end. As law enforcement failed to find answers and seemed intent on preventing the truth from surfacing, David uncovered a system of cover-ups that could only lead to one conclusion-Jon’s death was an act of murder.

A true page turner, filled with almost-too-unbelievable-to-be-true details of one community’s fight to find justice for one of its own … the issues raised, particularly when it comes to questions of police brutality and cover-ups, are very much relevant today.

-New York Times bestselling author Lisa Pulitzer

Includes 16 Pages of Photographs