A 27-year-old Wisconsin woman is accused of shooting her neighbor to death when he came by her apartment to make a noise complaint, authorities say.
Keionna McGowan faces second-degree reckless homicide charge with use of a dangerous weapon in connection with the death of her neighbor, 41-year-old Dr. Akintunde Bowden, a prominent Milwaukee dental surgeon.
According to the criminal complaint, police responded to reports of a shooting at an apartment complex at 11 p.m. on April 19.
Officers arrived to find Bowden’s body lying at McGowan’s doorway. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and an autopsy later confirmed he died from a single gunshot wound to his stomach.
McGowan told police that before the shooting, she was trying on clothes, doing her hair, and listening to music when she heard loud, aggressive banging at her door.
She answered the door to find Bowden, who lived in the apartment below hers. She said Bowden “appeared intoxicated,” and yelled at her to turn the music down.
McGowan told Bowden she would lower the music volume and shut the door, but Bowden allegedly continued to kick the door with “enough force to shake her apartment,” she said.
McGowan told detectives that she grabbed her gun and reopened her door.
As she pulled her door open, she saw Bowden making a kicking motion and fired her weapon, striking him once.
Responding officers saw McGowan running around the apartment building in a pink dress, yelling “Help,” and “He’s in my house, number 207.”
In a letter to complex residents about the shooting, property manager David Karademas stated that he had no knowledge of any previous disputes between Bowden and McGowan, who were “very long-term tenants.”
Karademas wrote that the complex has an “on-site caretaker” to handle noise complaints and other issues, but on the night of the shooting, Bowden “decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“According to our camera, he went up to the apartment himself and began aggressively banging on the door and even kicking it,” Karademas wrote, according to WISN. “The woman on the other side of the door became frightened and wrongfully presumed that she was about to be assaulted.”
The victim’s fiancée, Theresa Bell, who had no prior knowledge of Karademas sending the letter to residents, told investigators that Bowden was home watching a basketball game that night. She said that McGowan sometimes played music too loudly on previous occasions, but that Bowden never confronted her in the past.
She told WISN that it was McGowan who “insisted on taking matters into her own hands.”
Bowden was the director of dental services at Milwaukee Health Services, Inc. In 2022, he received a Black Excellence Award for his work with underserved patients.
Bell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her late fiancé was beloved by the community members he served and described him as a “protector” and a “provider.” She said she wants “justice” for his killing.
McGowan was charged on April 24 and was jailed on a $15,000 bond. She is claiming self-defense in the case.
If she’s found guilty of the charges, she could face up to 25 years in prison and another five years if convicted on the weapons charge, as well as a $100,000 fine.
