A jury convicted Carl Mott of murder and tampering with evidence in the 2024 killing of Michael Bowman.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A Bexar County judge sentenced Carl Mott to 70 years in prison on March 6 after jurors found him guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the fatal stabbing of 52-year-old Michael Bowman at a Northeast Side bus stop.

The sentence closes the main trial phase of a case prosecutors said grew out of jealousy and unfolded in minutes in public. Authorities said Mott had been in a long-running affair with Bowman’s wife before he confronted the couple on Dec. 14, 2024. Jurors convicted him Jan. 30, and the punishment handed down Friday gave formal weight to a prosecution that relied on eyewitness testimony, surveillance video and the later recovery of the knife.

According to court records and prosecutors, the case began at a bus stop in the 2600 block of Northeast Loop 410 on San Antonio’s Northeast Side. Michael Bowman and his wife, Crystal Bowman, were there when Mott arrived and words were exchanged. Prosecutors said Mott then approached Bowman with a knife and stabbed him in the upper left shoulder. The wound sent Bowman and his wife running to a nearby restaurant for help as he bled heavily. The couple identified Mott as the attacker in the immediate aftermath, and local reporting at the time said they told officers he had assaulted Bowman before. Bowman later died from the injury, turning what began as a sudden confrontation into a murder case that would move through Bexar County court for more than a year.

Investigators later built the case around what happened after the stabbing as much as what happened at the bus stop. Prosecutors said surveillance footage showed Mott leaving the scene and discarding the knife in bushes near his workplace about 10 minutes after the attack. That detail became central to the tampering charge and gave jurors a timeline that stretched beyond the bus stop itself. Investigators identified Mott as the suspect through witness testimony and video evidence, authorities said, and arrested him about 11 hours after the stabbing. Police recovered the knife four days later. The state’s account presented the attack as brief, deliberate and followed by an effort to hide a key piece of evidence rather than remain at the scene or surrender the weapon.

By the time the case reached sentencing, the public outline was clear. Mott, who was 61 at the time of the attack and 62 when sentenced, had been convicted in Bexar County’s 379th Criminal District Court. Judge Ron Rangel imposed the 70-year term after the Jan. 30 verdicts on murder and tampering with evidence. Prosecutors described the relationship behind the confrontation as a “long-standing extramarital relationship” between Mott and Crystal Bowman. That allegation did not change the legal question jurors had to answer, but it gave the state a motive theory that framed the violence as personal and escalating. The punishment phase then centered on accountability for Bowman’s death and on what prosecutors argued was an intentional effort to conceal the weapon used in the attack.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales cast the sentence as the final public statement of the case. “This was a senseless act of violence fueled by jealousy that cost a man his life,” Gonzales said. “Today’s sentence ensures the defendant is held accountable and that justice is delivered for the victim and his family.” Those remarks echoed the prosecution’s broader narrative: a public encounter, a fatal wound, a flight from the scene and a chain of evidence that began with a witness at the bus stop and ended with a prison term measured in decades. The case also stood out because the attack happened in an ordinary waiting area near businesses, then spilled into a nearby restaurant where Bowman sought help before he died.

Mott’s case now stands at its clearest point yet: conviction, sentence and a public record that traces the killing from the bus stop on Dec. 14, 2024, to the courtroom on March 6, 2026. Any appeal would mark the next formal milestone.

Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.