Jim Fowler is the father of former death row inmate Mark Fowler, who was executed by the state of Oklahoma on January 23, 2001. Along with his wife/Mark's stepmother Ann Fowler, Jim Fowler witnessed the execution of his son. Mark Fowler had been sent to death row 16 years prior to his execution for his role in the triple homicide that he and co-defendant Billy Ray Fox were accused of committing during their robbery of a grocery store.
Jim Fowler's history of tragic loss is not confined to the loss of a son to death row, however, as he suffered the loss of his mother to murder four years after his son was convicted of murder and sent to death row. As a result of this tragic murder, Mark Fowler would soon be joined on death row by the murderer of his paternal grandmother, only for this man (Robert Lee Miller, Jr.) to be exonerated 10 years later for the murder of his grandmother. When the actual murderer of Jim Fowler's mother (Ronnie Lott) was determined and convicted, Mr. Fowler spoke out against the death penalty for Mr. Lott.
The following excerpt was taken from an article written about the series of tragedies that Jim Fowler and his family have endured, many of which have brought him intimately acquainted with the many complexities of the death penalty. Following the excerpt below, you can find a link to the article from which the excerpt is taken:
"The family seemed to have a “Leave It To Beaver” existence. Carolyn doted on the boys and during nightly homework sessions steered Mark through problems related to his dyslexia. With the boys involved in Cub Scouts, Jim became a leader. In 1975, when Mark was 10, cancer struck Carolyn. She died five years later. Jim remarried six months after her death.
While Carolyn was ill, attention shifted from the children to her, Jim Fowler said. “When you have a tragedy in the family, all routine goes by the wayside.”
In September of 1986, four months after Mark was convicted, the Fowler family faced another tragedy. Jim Fowler’s 82-year-old mother, Anne Laura Fowler, was raped and murdered at her home in Oklahoma City. Robert Lee Miller Jr. was convicted of the crime and given a death sentence but was freed 10 years later based on DNA evidence.
Ronnie Lott, whose DNA matches that found at the scene, stands currently accused. Jim Fowler has agreed to speak against the death penalty for Lott.
“I don’t think my mother is hollering down for me to bring death on her killer.”
The experience of convicting the wrong man in Fowler’s mother’s murder has made members of the Fowler family even more skeptical of the death penalty process. “Now the same state is telling me it has the integrity to kill my nephew,” Gier told Tulsa World last year. “Any human system has holes in it.”
In 1990, Jim Fowler’s oldest son, James Gregory, was killed in an automobile accident. Fowler said the death of his son deepened his empathy for the families of the IGA victims. “Before a child dies you can only imagine the heartache and pain.”
http://www.natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2001a/011901/011901a.htm
On January 13, 2023 I sat down with Jim Fowler in his home in Oklahoma City to listen as he shared his tragic story of the numerous losses that he has suffered and the cental role that the death penalty has played throughout much of the tragedy that he has endured, having survived being both the father of a son who was executed in 2001 and the son of a murdered mother whose murderer was executed in 2013. He shared the details of his experience of witnessing his son's execution, alongside his wife, over twenty years ago. Sadly, his wife died approximately a decade ago, leaving him to recall this horrible experience alone. Mr. Fowler spoke a great deal about his involvement in the death penalty abolition movement, exclaiming repeatedly about the men on death row: "You don't have to kill them!" He is seen in the above photo holding a picture taken of his son Mark when Mark was on death row.