Isabella man arrested for physical and sexual abuse of wife

An Isabella man has been indicted by an Ozark County grand jury on six felony charges relating to the physical and sexual assault of his wife of 38 years. 

Mark K. Lowry, 65, was indicted by an Ozark County grand jury Aug. 16 on charges including two counts of domestic assault, two counts of sexual abuse, kidnapping (inflicting injury and terrorizing) and robbery. He was arrested Aug. 18 and has been held without bail since that time. He’s 

scheduled to appear for a plea hearing or trial setting before Circuit Judge Craig Carter on Oct. 19. 

His defense attorney, Patrick James Paradise, filed a motion for a bond reduction. It was overruled “without prejudice,” meaning the attorney could request bond reduction again in the future if he so wished. 

The class B felony of kidnapping  (inflicing injury and terrorizing) is the most serious charge against him, a class B felony that would carry a prison sentence of 5 to 15 years if convicted. 

Allegations

According to the probable cause statement written by Ozark County Deputy Matt Rhoades, the officer was dispatched to a residence on Choctaw Drive in Isabella on May 13 around 6:20 p.m. for a report of an assault. 

When he arrived, Rhoades made contact with the woman, who told him that Lowry assaulted her when she ran from her house to escape him. 

She reportedly told Rhoades of a recent incident in which he pinned her on the bed and wall and physically and sexually assaulted her while she tried to continually get away from him. The assault caused visible bruises and other injuries to her breast and more intimate areas of her body. 

She showed the officer text messages she had sent to her daughter the week before detailing the sexual assault and explaining that she was in “great fear for her safety” due to his behavior and abusiveness. 

May 13 incident

The woman said Lowry had woken up that morning around 10 a.m. and was acting erratic. In fear that she would be sexually assaulted again, the woman said she tried to run away from him. 

“She was near their property along the road trying to decide on her next course of action when he arrived in her vehicle and started yelling at her to get in the car and come back to the house,” the probable cause document states. “She told him no, and he got out, grabbed her by the hair and the left wrist and dragged her to the car, causing visible bruising and laceration to her knee from being dragged on the gravel.”

The woman said she told Lowry that she was going to call the police, and he took her cell phone away from her and refused to give it back. 

“He put her inside the car in the passenger seat and drove her down a nearby gravel road. She told him several times that she did not want to go with him and to let her out, but he refused and when she tried to get out, he pulled her back in the vehicle,” the report says.

The woman said at some point he put the car in park and grabbed her seatbelt, jerking it as tightly as he could across her breast, causing significant pain and injury. She said she got out of the vehicle and ran back out to the road, where she found a place to hide. 

Lowry’s response to the allegations

Rhoades made contact with Lowry before detaining him and placing him in custody, and during that interaction he reportedly asked if he had the woman’s phone. He said he did and retrieved it from under the passenger seat of a pickup that was parked in the yard of the house.

“He admitted he and [the woman] had been arguing and that he went out to the street to find [the woman], but stated they only yelled at each other and that she refused to come back to the house with him,” Rhoades wrote in the report. “I asked him why he had her phone. He stated he took it from her because his phone wasn’t working and he wanted to call someone. I asked where she got the bruises on her arm, and he stated they both have bruises because they get into fights and each other.”

Rhoades informed him he was under arrest and transported him to the Ozark County Jail.