COLUMBUS — Four Columbus men have been sentenced for their roles in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Imperial Stewart, whose body was found more than three years ago in a wooded area on the city’s Northeast Side, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday, Oct. 16.
Michael T. Bowles, 23, received the longest term: 30 to 35 and a half years in prison. He had pleaded guilty on Sept. 29 to involuntary manslaughter with a three-year firearm specification, aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence, gross abuse of a corpse, and possessing a weapon while under disability.
His younger brother, Mi’Quel Bowles, 21, was sentenced to 12 to 16 and a half years in prison after also pleading guilty on Sept. 29 to involuntary manslaughter with a three-year firearm specification. Russel Hargrove-Madison, 19, was sentenced to 16 to 19 and a half years after pleading guilty on Oct. 5 to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery, both with firearm specifications.
A fourth man, Michael R. Bowles Jr., 39, an uncle of the Bowles brothers, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in December 2023. He was sentenced on Oct. 16 to 60 days in the Franklin County jail followed by two years of community control.
Taken together, the three younger defendants drew combined prison terms of at least 58 years for a killing that has taken more than three years to work its way through the Franklin County courts since Stewart’s body was discovered.
The case turned on guilty pleas rather than a trial. Each of the three younger men admitted to involuntary manslaughter, the charge that anchored the prosecution, while the added counts — robbery, tampering, abuse of a corpse and the firearm specifications — shaped the length of the sentences handed down on Friday.
The weapons-under-disability count against Michael T. Bowles reflected that he was not legally permitted to possess a firearm because of a prior felony conviction or another legal restriction. The firearm specifications added mandatory time on top of the underlying sentences.
For Stewart’s family, Friday’s sentencings close the criminal cases against all four men charged in connection with the 17-year-old’s death, ending a wait that began when his body was found on Columbus’ Northeast Side more than three years ago.
