It was announced by the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday, that 40-year-old Wasilla man, Michael Dwayne Bowen has been indicted for Kidnapping in connection with the abduction of two North Pole girls on August 1st.

Bowen took the two girls, aged 9 and 6, on Saturday afternoon, August 1st, as they were riding their bikes in front of the North Pole Middle School. He threw the young girl’s bikes into the back of the truck, locked the two victims in the vehicle and headed south on the Richardson Highway.

The mother of the nine-year-old attempted to  call her daughter on the girl’s cellphone without success. Bowen had discarded the girl’s phone to eliminate the chance of being tracked with the device.

It wasn’t until the nine-year-old told Bowen that her dad “worked with the police,” did Bowen turn the vehicle around as he approached the community of Salsha, and take the girls back to North Pole.

Once re-united with their family, the girls gave accurate descriptions of their abductor and his vehicle, down to the flag dangling from the rear view mirror. That truck would be seen in the surveillance video from an eighth Avenue business in North Pole. In the video, a girl could be seen inside the truck and the flag dangling from the mirror was also observed.

On Friday, one week later, Bowen’s truck would be spotted in Fairbanks. Bowen was contacted that day and questioned by the FBI and North Pole Police. Bowen would first deny, and then admit that he was in the area where the girls had been abducted.

Then the complaint stated that when asked why he abducted the girls, Bowen said, “Bowen said he wanted to scare the parents. Bowen believed the girls were too young to be out on their own. When asked what he thought the parents would think when the girls didn’t come home, Bowen said if they were his kids, he would think that they were dead at the bottom of a lake.” He also told officers that he would likely do it again.

If convicted of the two counts of kidnapping, Bowen faces a minimum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and as much as a life sentence for each count. He would also be subject to fines of up to $250,000 for each conviction and face a lifetime of supervised release.

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  arrest, federal charges, girls, indictment, kidnapping, michael dwayne bowen, north pole, salcha