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| Rebecca Paige Oswalt |
Posted on 07/08/2003 1:06:02 PM PDT by Big Steve
SUMMERVILLE--Jimmy Burbage of Dorchester had taken his wife out for dinner and then a movie Sunday night. They chose the science fiction thriller "Terminator 3" because they thought it would be a fun, escapist fantasy.
"We ended up seeing reality unlike we've ever seen before," Burbage said Monday.
While smoking a cigarette outside a Ladson Road movie theatre, Burbage watched as a distraught 18-year-old North Charleston woman drove a white Chevrolet Lumina over a four-inch curb and plowed into a 17-year-old boy and girl.
Cynthia Meagan Bowen, a recent graduate of Stratford High School from Goose Creek died Sunday. Curtis Raymond Stock of Summerville was in critical condition at Medical University of South Carolina on Monday.
A former girlfriend of his, Rebecca Paige Oswalt of Tricorn Court, remains in the Dorchester County Detention Center on charges that include one count of murder and one count of assault and battery with intent to kill.
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Police said Oswalt, who graduated from Fort Dorchester High School last year, ran over Stock and Bowen after a heated argument in the parking lot of the Movies 8 Oakbrook theater.
Oswalt and Stock are believed to have dated, though police Monday stopped short of characterizing the relationship between the two. Witnesses told police that Oswalt and Stock had quarreled over their past relationship before Oswalt got into her car and ran over Stock and Bowen.
"We're still piecing it together, but they obviously had some sort of confrontation in the parking lot," said Summerville police spokesman Lt. Craig Legates.
Burbage said he was less than 10 feet away from Stock and Bowen when Oswalt hit the couple with her car. Burbage said the car was moving extremely fast when it struck the couple.
Burbage said he stepped outside the theater to smoke a cigarette at about 9:45 p.m. and heard Oswalt shouting obscenities at Stock and saw her slapping him on the head. Bowen appeared to be crying, he said.
Stock and Bowen then began walking down the sidewalk toward the theater entrance while Oswalt went to her car, he said.
The next thing he knew, he heard tires squealing and saw Oswalt driving her car at high speed toward the couple. The car jumped a four-inch curb and went onto the theater's sidewalk, he said, and the victims "never had a chance because they never looked back."
Burbage said Oswalt's Lumina went another 200 feet before stopping, and then Oswalt ran back to where Stock and Bowen were lying on the ground and apologized.
"She was crying and carrying on," Burbage said. "She knelt down between the two of them."
When police arrived a few minutes later, Burbage said Oswalt quickly confessed.
"She raised her hand and said, 'I did it. I ran over them. I killed them.' "
Oswalt, who has dark blonde hair and a petite build, appeared at a bond hearing Monday afternoon wearing an orange jail-issue jumpsuit. She showed little emotion as Summerville Municipal Court Judge Thomas Finucan told her that she faces the death penalty if convicted of murder. The intent to kill charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Oswalt answered Finucan's questions in a soft voice.
Bowen's mother clutched a photograph of her daughter as she sat in the front row of the courtroom. She was surrounded by dozens of family members, many of whom were loudly crying.
"It was senseless," Theresa Bowen told Finucan. "It was cruel. It didn't have to happen."
Stock's father, Thomas Stock, urged Finucan to make sure Oswalt remains in jail until her trial.
Finucan set Oswalt's bail at $500,000 for the charge of assault and battery with intent to kill. He denied bail on the murder charge, though a circuit judge could set a bail amount at a later date.
Before being escorted from the courtroom, Finucan told Oswalt, "This is a sad, dark day. Many people's lives will be affected from this day forward."
2 posted on 3/6/02 7:30 AM Pacific by grammymoon:
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People grieve differently. For example, I could NOT bring myself to read the cards people sent after my Mother died.
Because either her daughter is still being autopsied or her daughter is at the funeral home getting ready for her funeral services.
What other memory of her daughter should she bring to the court hearing? Or should she be barred from bringing anything at all?
Because they're totally out of their mind and overcome with unimaginable grief.
I'm betting that, if she serves at all, and is not judged non compos mentis, she'll do two years, get a couple of tattoos, maybe bulk up her arms, learn how to be bi-lesbian, and will appear on Jerry Springer sporting a belly shirt and getting into a love trangle catfight with a large, bleached haired latina woman whose corpulent bottom is itself making contest with the much too small spandex restraining it - all over some crackhead, unacquainted with the concept of work and living at home with his welfare mom.
FMCDH
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