NASHVILLE, Tenn. - New emails obtained by NewsChannel 5 paint a disturbing picture of a paranoid freshman District Attorney once in charge of the Holly Bobo case, slinging blame and determined to go it alone.
The unprecedented fallout began on December 12 inside a conference room at Tennessee Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Nashville. Several people, including TBI Director Mark Gwyn and Decatur County DA Matt Stowe, were meeting to discuss the Holly Bobo case.
Emails obtained by NewsChannel 5 reveal things quickly fell apart.
"General Stowe said he felt that TBI had compromised the case," wrote Wally Kirby, Executive Director of Tennessee District Attorney's Conference.
Kirby was also in the room during the December 12 meeting.
Emails reveal that Stowe went on to say that the TBI had proceeded, "so slowly that the culprits were always one step ahead and that TBI... was leaking information and possibly covering up evidence."
"General Stowe also stated that he trusted no one in the room [which, as you can imagine had a chilling effect on the remainder of the meeting]," Kirby wrote.
The rest, as they say, is history.
TBI Director Mark Gwyn immediately removed the agency from all cases in the 24th Judicial district but not before visiting Holly Bobo's mom and dad.
From the same email: "Director Gwyn decided that he should go and talk with the Bobo Family... Mrs. Bobo had a melt down and [said] she was going to destroy Matt Stowe. She wanted him off the case... and the TBI back on the case.”
Since those days in December, Matt Stowe has repeatedly avoided requests by NewsChannel 5 for an interview.
The day the story broke, though, Stowe sat down for an interview with another local television station, a decision that seemingly made the situation worse.
Wally Kirby writes: "Stowe was not truthful in the interview. He said he never asked TBI to leave his district. Mark [Gwyn] is not happy and will likely make some statement tonight. "
Then Memphis District Attorney Amy Weirich enters the fray -- Stowe initially demanded her special prosecutor also be taken off the Bobo case.
"If my office has been removed from the case, what is the point in me sitting down with him? The only way [we] will be back on the case is for Stowe to recuse himself," Weirich wrote in an email.
In the end, that's what finally happened. With very little choice, Stowe finally stepped aside from the Bobo case on December 18, six days after that initial meeting with TBI director Mark Gwyn.
A very short, yet very public, battle perhaps summed up in one sentence written by Wally Kirby:
"I feel that we have done all we can do to help General Stowe in this matter because of his lack of experience."
