The punishment followed January convictions for murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Michael Bowman.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Judge Ron Rangel sentenced Carl Mott to 70 years in prison March 6 after a Bexar County jury found him guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the fatal stabbing of Michael Bowman.
The courtroom result came after prosecutors laid out a case that began with a confrontation at a bus stop and expanded into a motive-and-evidence narrative built around an alleged affair, eyewitness identification and surveillance footage. Jurors returned guilty verdicts Jan. 30 in the 379th Criminal District Court. The sentence gave the prosecution’s theory its final trial-court outcome and marked the point at which the case shifted from fact-finding to formal punishment.
From the state’s point of view, the motive mattered because it explained why an encounter at a bus stop turned deadly. Prosecutors said Mott had been engaged in a “long-standing extramarital relationship” with Crystal Bowman, the victim’s wife. Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales later summarized the state’s view in plain terms, calling it “a senseless act of violence fueled by jealousy.” That motive claim did not stand alone; it was paired with the testimony and physical evidence that prosecutors said supported it. Still, it shaped how the case was presented publicly after sentencing and gave the criminal file a personal backdrop that distinguished it from an unplanned street altercation between strangers.
The underlying attack happened on Dec. 14, 2024, at a bus stop on San Antonio’s Northeast Side in the 2600 block of Northeast Loop 410. Authorities said Michael Bowman, 52, was there with Crystal Bowman when Mott approached. After words were exchanged, prosecutors said, Mott stabbed Bowman in the upper left shoulder. Bowman and his wife then went into a nearby restaurant to seek help as he bled heavily. He later died from the injury. In the first moments after the attack, the Bowmans identified Mott as the assailant, according to reports. Local coverage at the time also said they told police Mott had assaulted Bowman before, adding a possible history of conflict to the state’s account of the final encounter.
What followed after the stabbing became just as important in court as what happened at the bus stop. Prosecutors said surveillance footage captured Mott discarding the knife in bushes near his workplace about 10 minutes after the attack. Police arrested him about 11 hours later, authorities said, and the knife was recovered four days after the stabbing. Those details turned the prosecution into more than a one-witness case. They allowed the state to tie the fatal injury to a later act that supported the tampering count, and they gave jurors a timeline with several distinct checkpoints: the confrontation, the wound, the movement to the restaurant, the disposal of the knife and the arrest later that day.
The sentencing phase put those pieces into a single legal judgment. By March 6, the questions of identity and culpability had already been answered by the Jan. 30 verdicts. The remaining question was punishment, and Rangel’s 70-year sentence delivered a severe one. No public statement released with the sentencing suggested any immediate new hearing beyond the ordinary post-conviction process. What remains, then, is a record that tracks how a personal dispute entered a public place and ended in a prison term likely to define the rest of Mott’s life. For Bowman’s family, the sentence is the court’s final trial-level response; for the defense, any next step would have to come after judgment.
The case now stands in its procedural posture with unusual clarity: guilty verdicts on Jan. 30, sentencing on March 6, and no unresolved factual mystery in the public account about who was accused of the stabbing. The next milestone would come through appeal or another post-judgment filing.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.