Girlfriend told police and neighbors different stories about missing Louisa man

MINERAL -- When people started asking what had become of Reginal Cody Bowles, missing since at least early 2007, his live-in girlfriend gave vastly different explanations, neighbors and Louisa County authorities said yesterday.

On Friday, investigators found a body believed to be Bowles at the bottom of a 25-foot-deep well on the couple's property in the 100 block of Garretts Mill Road in Mineral.

The next day, investigators charged his girlfriend, Ulisa Marie Chavers, 60, with concealment of a dead body. Authorities still don't know the cause of death or when the body was put in the unused well.

A neighbor, Joe Hansen, said yesterday that he asked Chavers about Bowles' whereabouts even earlier than 2007, possibly in November 2006. He said she told him that Bowles, who would have turned 55 in December, was grieving his mother's death and had moved to Florida to be closer to a son.

She told another neighbor, Rick Lawson, that Bowles had traveled by motorcycle to Sturgis, S.D., and told her she could sell all his things and keep the money, Lawson recalled. She later told him a different story, that Bowles had died in bed at their home, he said.

"Depending on who you talk to, she had apparently told different versions of the story to different people," said Maj. Donald A. Lowe of the Louisa Sheriff's Office.

Authorities started investigating in November when a son who lives in Florida contacted them and expressed concern that he had not heard from his father.

Chavers told authorities that Bowles had left for South Dakota on a motorcycle "to do the free-spirited thing" and that he was keeping in touch with her while he was away, Lowe said. But investigators couldn't verify anything she was telling them.

"Details in the story changed a couple of times," Lowe said. Mounting suspicion led investigators to search the property with a cadaver dog Friday, when they found the body under a tarp and wrapped in sleeping bags in the well.

Hansen said he used to cut hay for the couple. He said the two had lived at the home for about eight years.

"We stopped seeing him, and we started asking her questions," Hansen said.

Lawson said he used to bring sausage and pork chops to Chavers. "She didn't have a whole lot," he said.

In addition to the charge of concealing a body, Chavers faces charges of possession of a sawed-off rifle, identity theft and credit-card fraud. Authorities added that Bowles' Social Security checks had been cashed during the time he was missing.

Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or .