Jason Lowe, Yuppie Killer Claimed Girlfriend Jesse Bardwell Died In Shower Sex Slip, Gets 50 Years Behind Bars

Jesse Bardwell, a 27-year-old Mississippi woman described by her family as a “free spirit” with a “heart of gold,” died last year in what her boyfriend, high-living 28-year-old Jason Lowe, later claimed was a bizarre accident during sex. But neither police, nor a Texas jury bought his story, and on Wednesday of last week, the Richardson, Texas, man was found guilty of murdering Bardwell and was sentenced to a 50-year sentence, avoiding a life term due to a deal he struck with prosecutors when he agreed to lead them to Bardwell’s body.

Bardwell was reported missing on May 8, 2016, and Lowe spun a web of lies and deceit that caused Bardwell’s parents, who reported her missing after she failed to call them for Mother’s Day, “a nightmare no parent should ever have to endure,” as reported the Dallas Morning News.

Lowe said that he never reported his girlfriend missing because the couple “lead a lifestyle where they both do their own thing and aren’t co-dependent.” But as investigators later discovered, Lowe had been carrying on relationships with two other women — and he continued sending sexually explicit text messages to the women, even as Bardwell’s body lay decomposing in the back of his Audi SUV.

Jason Lowe is charged with murder in death of his girlfriend, Jessie Bardwell. Here he is on 4th day of trial – pic by @pixjaelee #lowetrial pic.twitter.com/EjL2GvrdJ6

— Valerie Wigglesworth (@vlwigg) September 18, 2017

Lowe has a history of domestic violence. He was arrested in 2015 on charges that he choked a woman he was then dating, even telling her, “I’m killing you now,” as she lost consciousness, according to a Dallas Morning News report.

According to an arrest warrant obtained by WLOX in Bardwell’s hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi, police searched the Audi on May 12 and discovered that the car smelled strongly of decaying flesh, and coagulated pools of blood were discovered in the vehicle.

Lowe eventually led police to where he had dumped Bardwell’s body, according to the Dallas Morning News. They found the young woman’s skeletal remains wrapped in a blue sheet and bubble wrap, covered with a mat from the Audi and some broken tree branches in a wooded area along a rural road in Farmersville, Texas.

But when it came time for his trial last week, Lowe had a whole new story to tell about how Bardwell died — a story that no one had heard in the 16 months since his arrest. Jessie Bardwell, Lowe told the jury, died after the couple had drug-fueled sex in the shower — and the young woman slipped and hit her head, twice. Lowe claimed that the pair had taken the drug Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate, better known as GHB and commonly referred to as a “date rape” drug.

Toxicology reports revealed no evidence of drugs in Bardwell’s system, though GHB is not commonly part of such tests.

Lowe claimed that they both took another dose of GHB and went to sleep. When he woke up, he testified, Bardwell was dead. Lowe said that he panicked and did not call police, instead disposing of Bardwell’s body. He admitted lying to Bardwell’s parents, allowing them to believe that their daughter was still alive at the time that he had her body stuffed in the back of his SUV.

The following news report by Dallas TV station KTVT contains further details on Lowe’s murder conviction.

Coroners identified the cause of Bardwell’s death only as “homicidal violence,” reporting that the woman’s body was in such an advanced state of decomposition by the time it was discovered that it was impossible to determine specific injuries and how they had been inflicted.

[Featured Images by Remembering Jessie Merle Garner Bardwell Facebook]