Heath was born to Patrick and Shawna Bowen in Banbury England on Jan 31st 1977. We lived in Brackley
England at the time. We left there in 1982 and moved to Loring AFB in the northern tip of Maine. Heath liked all the snow.
In 1984 I got out of the Air Force and Shawna and I split up. Heath moved to Peru Indiana with his Mother, and I went to Columbus Ohio to find work. I moved briefly to Peru to be near the kids. Then I got a good job in Columbus and moved back.
Heath came to live with me very unexpectedly to him and to me. He started school in Hilliard,OH. He came to me with only a few weeks of the school season left and lost a lot of credits due to classes he was in in Peru that wasn’t available in Hilliard. He dropped out of school the following year but did get his GED the same year.
He worked at several places, burger king, sprint lube, before getting a job at Radio Shack. He worked there about 3 years. He learned a lot about electronics there. He had a very good boss/friend in Jim Fisher who helped Heath a lot.
Heath liked his stereo music up very very loud in his car. After he moved to Kansas he called me and apologized for playing his rap music around me. He had then changed his tastes to The Doors, and older music.
Heath was a very likeable kid and had many many friends.
I'm not really sure when he first got into drugs and alcohol. He said when he was in Peru. It was a battle trying to keep him off of drugs and alcohol when he moved to Ohio. Hilliard is a suburb of Columbus Ohio where drugs are easily found.
Heath moved to Kansas. He settled in Olathe. After Heath died I was told by some of his friends that he told them he would die when he was 27 years old. From what I understand he said that Jim Morrison of the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain were all 27 when they died and he would to. And he did.
Apparently he worked at Pizza Hut the day he died. After work he had some friends over. After they left another friend came over and brought his guitar. His friend played the guitar and Heath played the keyboard. At around 4AM the friend told Heath he had to leave at which time Heath became suicidal saying life sucked. Heath picked up his assault rifle, walked to the end of his bed, said "well time to go" fell back on the bed, crossed his legs, put the butt of the gun between his legs, put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. And that was the end of a wonderful young man, who made some very bad decisions.