JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Friends have identified the man who was killed early Tuesday morning in Mandarin in what police described as a domestic-related shooting.
Christopher Bowman, 47, had recently moved to Jacksonville from Virginia, according to friends.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said it received several 911 calls around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday about a shooting at a home on Sheldrake Drive, just south of Loretto Road. Responding officers found a man, who friends identified as Bowman, dead inside the home with at least one gunshot wound.
“It was domestic-related. It was a boyfriend-girlfriend situation. Both were adults,” said Sgt. E.J. Browsky, with the Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators have interviewed the man’s girlfriend.
News4Jax learned Bowman and his girlfriend, who News4Jax has chosen not to identify because she has not been charged, had known each other for many years. Scott Gendron, a longtime friend of Bowman, said Bowman said the woman met each other while working at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Virginia, but they recently started dating and moved from Virginia to the home in Florida about a month ago.
Gendron said he knew Bowman for the past 11 years and said Bowman lived with him and his wife in Virginia for several months when Bowman was on hard times and needed a roof over his head.
“We had all been crying all day. It comes in waves. You’ll be OK for a few minutes, then all of a sudden, it just hits you again. I mean, we’re all very upset because he was really good guy,” Gendron said,
Gendron said, during the time Bowman lived with them, he never came across as a violent person.
“He was just a really good person. He would drop anything he was doing to help a friend out,” Gendron said.
Gendron said Bowman knew his girlfriend’s parents in Virginia very well and her father is the one who called to let him know Bowman had died. Gendron said Bowman’s girlfriend called her father.
“Now that triggers something in me because 911 should have been her first phone call,” Gendron said.
Neighbors told News4Jax there never appeared to be any trouble between the couple. Hours before the shooting, Bowman was on Facebook, where he wrote a post that said: “Date night with my baby at One Night Taco Stand.” The post included pictures of him and his girlfriend sitting inside the restaurant.
Neighbors said Bowman’s girlfriend does not appear to have returned to the home since the shooting.
News4Jax reached out to her ex-husband to see if he had any thoughts on what happened, but he declined to comment.