A man was put behind bars for the 2023 murder of Ilene Gowan when police discovered a zipper imprint on the suspect's hands.
The entire story begins one cold morning in February 2023 when Gowan, an Iowa native, was found dead and frozen on the side of the road. At the time, police said that they had suspected that her on-and-off again boyfriend Ivan, "Sam" Brammer might have had something to do with it.
According to police, there were multiple abrasions on Gowan’s body and the initial medical examiner could not determine what caused her death. Therefore, the police were unable to arrest Brammer for murder.
According to the examiner's report, Gowan had multiple injuries on her body, including multiple contusions and abrasions of the head, and a L-shaped laceration on her head. The report stated that the laceration was not the cause of the woman's death and that she also had a broken tooth.
A toxicology report stated that prior to her death, Gowan only had caffeine, nicotine and a prescription drug in her system. Assistant State Medical Examiner Kelly Kruse listed her cause of death as “unknown.”
Desperate for answers, Gowan's family turned to renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden and asked him to conduct his own investigation. Baden's involvement in the case was documented in the first episode of Fox Nation’s The Baden Files titled The Zipper. In the episode, Baden describes how Gowan was last spotted alive on surveillance footage leaving her job at Sugar’s Lounge and Diner in Council Bluffs and getting into Brammer’s Ford F-150 on February 12.
“I was called by Ilene Gowan’s [son] … [who said] that his [mother] had been murdered and that the prosecutor was very helpful in trying to find out the cause of death and who done it,” Baden told Fox News Digital. The man immediately went to work on the case.
The woman is then seen again on a traffic camera the next morning. However, during this time, her body appeared awkwardly to one side. In the traffic feed, the woman appeared to be wearing the same clothes as she was found in, although she was missing one shoe, her cell phone and her purse.
According to an affidavit obtained by Fox Nation, her personal safe which reportedly contained $1,200 was also reported missing. A few days prior to the discovery of her body, it was reported that Brammer had deposited the same amount into his bank account. Ten days later, he allegedly took his truck to the salvage yard and destroyed it. While pouring over the crime scene photos, Braden made a key discovery.
“[With] my experience, I was able to see marks on [her] neck that were typical for zipper imprint, the teeth of a zipper, [that left] a certain unique imprint pattern just like a hammer might, or another solid object might leave an imprint on the skin,” Baden told Fox News Digital. “I had seen zipper imprints like this in the past.” He added: "This tells me what happened. Not who done it – that’s up to the police."
In March, police arrested Brammer for the murder. While in court, Baden stated that he had determined that Gowan had been strangled to death in a chokehold. he explained that anything caught underneath the assailant's arms while performing the act such as jewelry or say ... a zipper would leave behind an imprint.
Thanks to Baden's findings, Brammer — who had been charged with theft and abuse of a corpse — was also now facing a murder sentence. Brammer was later sentenced to a maximum of 50 years in prison, another 10 for abusing a corpse and five years for theft. The 65 years were to be served concurrently.
“It was amazing to me how close the family was and how disturbed they were that harm was done to their mom,” Baden told Fox News Digital. “And because of their interests, the investigation continued, and the prosecutor listened to the family, and the police listened. And the medical examiner were all very cooperative to be able to bring it to bring the case to trial.”
Local News
Comments / 0