Episode 157: Det. Dan Willis (Ret) - Harold Sowers Case Study
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There is a psychological compulsion that drives child molesters to relive their sexual fantasies with their victims. This compulsion can provide the child molestation investigator with critical corroborative evidence. The case of Harold Sowers demonstrates how a molester’s innate craving to seek and maintain mementos of their victims often ensures that crucial evidence will remain undisturbed, waiting for the investigator to discover it — even after 20 years.
Case background
While enjoying his summer, 8-year-old Andrew’s only thoughts were of Little League baseball and having fun. At his young age, there was no way for him to understand the perverted intentions of a friendly 35-year-old man, Harold Sowers, who lived several blocks away in La Mesa, California, a suburb of San Diego.
There was also no way for Sowers to foresee that his compulsive desire to relive his deviant fantasies with his victims by keeping mementos of their relationship would eventually seal his conviction 27 years after the crime — despite no DNA evidence and no confession. The Sowers case offers intriguing insight into the motivations of child molesters and the type of evidence an investigator can hope to find, even years beyond the initial crime.
Harold Sowers patiently took specific steps toward befriending young Andrew and gaining his trust, which eventually led to him being able to severely and repeatedly molest Andrew over a three-month period. Harold Sowers was a preferential child molester, one who preferred his male victims to be about 7–12 years old. Once a victim becomes older than the age that a preferential molester is fixated on, the molester is compulsively driven to continue to relive his perverted fantasies with the victim through photos, writings, computer and text messages, and mementos of the child at that particular age. The sexual fantasies of these molesters are so powerful that they compel them to save these “trophies” as their most prized possessions, often keeping them for life.
At the end of summer, Andrew’s parents relocated the family, and Andrew lost contact with Sowers. Andrew never told his parents nor anyone else about the molestation until 20 years later. That’s when 28-year-old Andrew reported the molestation to the La Mesa Police Department.
Even though a new California state law had just taken effect months earlier that eliminated the statute of limitations for child molestation, the chances of successfully investigating and prosecuting Harold Sowers after 20 years were practically nonexistent — that is, until the investigator asked Andrew if Sowers had ever taken any photos of him. Andrew tearfully described several posed nude photos Sowers had taken of him after some of the molestation incidents. Now, there was at least hope to corroborate Andrew’s 20-year-old secret.
Captain Dan Willis (ret) served for 30 years with the La Mesa Police Department in California and now travels the country as an international instructor on trauma recovery, resilience, and wellness. He is the author of the emotional survival and wellness guidebook Bulletproof Spirit: The First Responders Essential Resource for Protecting and Healing Mind and Heart, which is required reading at the FBI National Academy. Visit FirstResponderWellness.com for more information.
