Prosecutors said Carl Mott threw the knife into bushes near his workplace about 10 minutes after the attack.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A surveillance trail that prosecutors said began minutes after a fatal stabbing ended in a 70-year prison sentence Friday for Carl Mott, who was convicted of killing Michael Bowman at a San Antonio bus stop in December 2024.
What made the case unusually direct was the way investigators said they were able to track the weapon, the suspect and the timeline in quick order. Jurors convicted Mott on Jan. 30 of murder and tampering with evidence, and Judge Ron Rangel later imposed the sentence in Bexar County’s 379th Criminal District Court. The state said the evidence showed not only a fatal confrontation but also a rapid attempt to get rid of the knife used in it.
Prosecutors said the attack took place on Dec. 14, 2024, in the 2600 block of Northeast Loop 410, where Bowman and his wife, Crystal Bowman, were at a bus stop. Mott, who prosecutors said had been involved in a long-term affair with Crystal Bowman, encountered the couple there. After words were exchanged, authorities said, he stabbed Michael Bowman in the upper left shoulder. Bowman and his wife then moved quickly to a nearby restaurant to seek help. He was bleeding heavily, and the immediate statements from the couple identified Mott as the attacker. Bowman later died from the wound. The public account of the stabbing remained spare in some respects, but the broad sequence left little doubt about the speed of the encounter and the seriousness of the injury.
The prosecution’s case then widened beyond the bus stop. Authorities said surveillance footage captured Mott discarding the knife in bushes near his workplace about 10 minutes after the stabbing. That claim gave investigators a second fixed point after the attack itself. It also supported the tampering allegation, which mattered because the case was not only about the fatal wound but about what prosecutors said Mott did to separate himself from the weapon. Police arrested him about 11 hours later, according to authorities, and found the knife four days after the attack. Combined with Crystal Bowman’s testimony and other investigative work, the video evidence helped create a chain that linked motive, act and post-crime conduct in one account the jury ultimately accepted.
The motive theory was personal and blunt. Prosecutors said Mott had been engaged in a “long-standing extramarital relationship” with Crystal Bowman, making the confrontation with her husband more than a chance encounter. Local reporting from the time of the stabbing said the Bowmans also told officers that Mott had assaulted Michael Bowman before. That earlier allegation did not become the center of the sentencing announcement, but it added a history of conflict to a case already defined by a public act of violence. Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said after sentencing that the killing was “a senseless act of violence fueled by jealousy.” The state presented the case as one in which private resentment erupted in a public place and then moved almost immediately into concealment of evidence.
The legal path was relatively swift once the case reached trial. Jurors returned guilty verdicts on Jan. 30, 2026, on both murder and tampering with evidence. On March 6, Rangel sentenced Mott to 70 years in prison. Officials did not publicly outline any immediate new proceeding beyond the sentence, and the case now enters the stage where the record, verdict and punishment define what comes next. For Michael Bowman’s family, the courtroom outcome delivered the most concrete answer the criminal system can provide. For investigators and prosecutors, it marked the end of a case built around a narrow stretch of time that began at a bus stop and quickly moved onto camera.
The next milestone in Mott’s case, if one comes, would likely be in post-conviction filings.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.