In the quiet city of Savannah, Georgia, the life of 67-year-old Ronald Forcier, a white male, came to a violent and tragic end on the evening of February 15, 2016. His body was discovered inside his vehicle at the intersection of East 35th Street and Ott Street, the victim of a fatal gunshot wound. Officers had been dispatched to the scene following a report of a suspicious vehicle, only to make the grim discovery. The stillness of the night had been broken by the sound of gunfire, a detail provided by witnesses in the area, which quickly turned a suspicious vehicle call into a homicide investigation.
The Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department's violent crimes unit took the lead on the case. Their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Forcier's death led them to two individuals. The first arrest was made the following month, when investigators identified Shawn Ramone Bowens, a 46-year-old man with a lengthy criminal history, as a suspect. He was taken into custody and charged with murder.
The investigation did not end with Bowens' arrest. More than a year later, in May 2017, a second suspect was apprehended. Karen Williams, a 50-year-old woman also known as Karen Lynette Clark, was arrested in connection with Forcier's murder. Her arrest was happenstance, as she was initially detained for shoplifting. It was then that outstanding warrants for aggravated assault, felony murder, and malice murder in the Forcier case were served.
Following their arrests, both Shawn Ramone Bowens and Karen Williams were indicted on charges of malice murder and felony murder. The indictment alleged that the pair caused Forcier's death by shooting him during the commission of an aggravated assault. Bowens faced an additional charge for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, a testament to his past encounters with the law. The case against them underscored the violent nature of the crime that had taken the life of Ronald Forcier, leaving a community to grapple with the senseless act.
