A woman came forward to speak on camera Wednesday about the man who allegedly raped her, threatened to kill her children and left her scarred.
The woman spoke to Channel 2 Action News, detailing how the alleged Clayton County serial rapist, Kenneth Thomas Bowen III, attacked her in 2017. She didn’t want Channel 2 to report her name, but she wanted to show her face.
“He should be the one hiding from all the cameras, not me,” she said.
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She told Channel 2 she woke up in her bed with Bowen standing over her. She threw punches and fought him, but he allegedly pulled a knife on her and held it to her throat. She said she grabbed the knife, causing her to accidentally cut tendons in two fingers.
“He just told me that if you don’t do what I tell you to do, I’m going to kill your kids,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”
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After that happened, she said Bowen showed her the only bit of compassion he did during the attack, since he allowed her to bandage up the cuts. She said the damage has never fully healed, which affects her job at Grady Memorial Hospital.
“He told me, ‘Well you got to put something around it to make it stop bleeding,’” she told the news station.
However, Bowen then raped her while her one-year-old son was in bed, waking him up and causing him to cry, she said. She said the attack lasted about an hour and a half.
The next time she saw him was in court, where he faces charges connected to seven rapes and a sexual battery. She told Channel 2 that seeing Bowen, who is now 24 years old, in custody was an emotional and cathartic experience.
“You’re in jail, and I’m over here watching, and I have my freedom,” she told Channel 2. “I don’t think he should be on the streets ever again.”
The eight sex crimes Bowen is linked to took place between July 2015 and March 2019, and he's accused of varying his method of attack in each instance. All but one woman lived in apartment or townhouse complexes in Clayton County, in the area of Battle Creek Road between Jonesboro and Riverdale.
Bowen was briefly hired by the Clayton County Police Department in June 2018, but he was fired less than three months later on Sept. 12, 2018, after he arrived to training nearly four hours late and was not truthful to supervising officers about where he was during the time, Chief Kevin Roberts previously said.
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Background information he provided as a police recruit helped eventually link him to the sex crimes, investigators said. He was arrested in August.
The woman who spoke to Channel 2 on Wednesday was the third alleged victim of his to speak publicly about what happened since his arrest. In late August, the woman police believe was his first victim told Channel 2 she was relieved he was behind bars without bond.
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In September, Millicent Benson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she was raped by Bowen and wanted to be identified to erase any shame sexual assault victims may feel.
After the interview Wednesday, Bowen’s attorney told Channel 2 that the defense has no comment regarding any of the women’s details of what took place.
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