Court records: Ex-cop thinks stripper was killed by Detroit officer
It’s a mystery that never had a definitive answer, the story of a Detroit stripper known as Strawberry who was killed in a hail of gunfire while sitting in a car with her boyfriend in the predawn darkness of April 30, 2003.
Since then, Detroit police and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have combated persistent rumors and lawsuit allegations that Tamara Greene was killed because she danced at a wild party at the Manoogian Mansion.
Despite repeated denials by the mayor and a state investigation that dismissed the claims as an urban legend, the story has persisted and is being fueled by fresh allegations raised by a former homicide detective as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Greene’s 14-year-old son, Jonathan Bond.
In a 10-page affidavit filed Friday in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, former Lt. Alvin Bowman says he believes Greene, 27, was killed by a Detroit cop and that police officials derailed his homicide investigation.
“I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer,” Bowman said in the document.
Detroit police spokesman James Tate declined to comment on Bowman’s allegations Monday, citing the pending federal litigation.
Southfield lawyer Mayer Morganroth, who is defending the city in the federal suit, scoffed at the allegations.
“The Bowman affidavit is a little less than idiotic and more than absurd,” Morganroth said. “And there’s nothing in it that hasn’t been said before.”
Morganroth said no one has ever produced evidence that a Manoogian party occurred or that Greene was there. He added that the pending suit has little chance of success.
Affidavit alleges obstruction
The federal suit charges that the mayor, then-chief of staff Christine Beatty and police execs scuttled the investigation so no killer would be found, preventing the family from finding who was behind her death.
In the affidavit, Bowman laid out how he says Detroit police executives, including then-Chief Jerry Oliver and his successor, Ella Bully-Cummings, sabotaged him.
He said reports were removed from the homicide file, files were deleted from homicide computers and the file itself was locked up so Bowman couldn’t get it. Eventually, he said, he was transferred out of homicide because he had asked too many questions.
Bowman said Greene worked for an associate of the mayor, but he didn’t say whom. He also claimed in the affidavit that State Police obtained telephone records linking Greene to high-ranking city employees shortly before her death.
Bowman won a $200,000 verdict from a Wayne County Circuit Court jury in October 2005 after he said he was demoted because he refused to drop the case. Bowman, who had asked for $1.8 million, eventually left the force.
Greene died at 3:40 a.m. April 30, 2003, while sitting in her car with her 32-year-old boyfriend on Roselawn at West Outer Drive. The killing was never solved. The boyfriend was wounded but survived.
Bowman said Greene took about 18 bullets in the attack.
Bowman said he believes a Detroit cop killed Greene because of the large number of bullets that hit Greene and the .40-caliber shell casings found at the scene. Detroit police use .40-caliber Glock pistols.
After the first hail of bullets, Bowman said, the white Chevrolet TrailBlazer from which the shots were fired circled back for another pass, but the boyfriend wasn’t shot at, prompting Bowman to conclude Greene was the only target.
Reaction to the document
Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene’s son in the suit, said no one is in a better position to talk about the shooting or how the investigation was ruined than Bowman. “What more do you need?” he said.
A spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who concluded in June 2003 that the party was an urban legend, defended Cox’s five-week probe. Rusty Hills said Monday that Cox and State Police interviewed more than 120 witnesses and reviewed 10,000 pages of records.
“If anybody has any evidence, we’d love to see it,” Hills said. “But for the last five years, there’s been no evidence.”
But the Free Press reported that State Police investigators later complained Cox had impeded their probe by denying some of their subpoena and search warrant requests, and by excluding them from Cox’s interview of the mayor.
In the affidavit, Bowman said the Greene investigation inexplicably drew a lot of attention from Oliver and he said Oliver asked for the file repeatedly and sent it back with reports missing.
Oliver responded Monday that he never requested the file, never saw it and never had a conversation about the Greene case. He said he did not know Bowman.
“His statements are inaccurate,” Oliver said.
After Bully-Cummings became chief, Bowman said, she summoned him to a meeting with other police brass, said she was aware of the connection between the Greene probe and the mayor, and “due to the nature and sensitivity of this case, that this case was not to be discussed outside her office.”
He said a police executive put the homicide file in a combination-locked safe that he couldn’t access.
Bowman said that while he was on vacation, the Greene case was transferred to the cold case squad, even though it was less than a year old. He said the officer in charge of that unit told him the Greene case was “a hot potato” that wouldn’t be investigated for fear of retribution because of Greene’s link to the Manoogian party.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490 or ashenf@freepress.com. Staff writers M.L. Elrick, Jim Schaefer and Ben Schmitt contributed to this report.
