Little Bowman says the package was opened on Christmas Day and that his father said, 'I've been set up.'
1. Unforgotten S2 Ep 5, “Stephen Pearson, Part 2,” tracks Steven Pearson’s disappearance, the package delivery, and the blue Impala found in the woods behind Henderson Farms Road.
2. Sellers and Stormy host the episode, and Sheriff Paul Birch appears as the Mobile County law-enforcement figure who says this is the only unsolved case in his career.
3. The episode asks whether Steven Pearson was trying to get away from family conflict or was silenced after the package dispute.
4. Kathy Grimes, the Grand Bay postmaster, tells investigators that Steven signed for a package addressed to P. Carter and delivered it to the Bowman residence on Wheatcroft Road South.
5. Grimes says James Bowman Jr. and James Bowman III first denied receiving the package, then admitted it contained marijuana and claimed they burned most of it.
6. The missing-person report reads that Julie Pearson found Steven’s blue Chevrolet Impala station wagon missing on December 28, 2000, and that Dr. Creighton’s office had warned her Steven was especially delusional.
7. The report also says Steven mentioned snipers in the trees, may have threatened Julie’s son, and had not been taking lithium.
8. The Henderson Farms Road vehicle discovery report lists a blue 1979 Chevrolet Impala station wagon, Alabama tag 2CM8958, a checkbook with Steven Pearson’s name, a TV, a BB gun, a sleeping bag, and a camouflage air rifle.
9. Birch says the scene looked staged, with buckets, tools, and paperwork bearing Steven’s name placed to suggest someone had been living there.
10. The hosts note that most witnesses remembered Steven driving a red blazer, while Tina Bowman is the only person they mention who referred to the station wagon.
11. Birch says investigators believed the Bowmans were extremely afraid of prison because of the marijuana and that Steven went to the postmaster after learning what the package contained.
12. The timeline in the episode places Steven’s disappearance the day after the postmaster visited the Bowmans, which Birch says is why he does not believe in coincidences.
13. Little Bowman’s interview includes the line that his father thought he had been set up, and he describes the family panicking over the package in the wooden outbuilding behind the house.
14. The same interview has Little Bowman saying he avoids the police, does not want to deal with the sheriff’s department, and believes five pounds of marijuana would not be worth killing over.
15. Big Bowman’s interview is presented as disjointed, with references to Mississippi, being framed, and Steven acting scared after learning the package contained marijuana.
16. The hosts point out that Little Bowman repeatedly says “Steve” before shifting to “Mr. Pearson” when he talks about Steven’s disappearance.
17. The episode uses a conversational interview style, with Sellers and Stormy reacting to the case details as Birch and the recorded transcripts are introduced.
18. The tone stays investigative and chatty, with back-and-forth questions, short reactions, and direct reading from reports and interview transcripts.
19. Listeners interested in Alabama missing-person cases and drug-related circumstantial evidence.
20. Skip it if you want a self-contained crime story with a clean resolution.
