Rural crash double loss for horseman

Ed Koch and Mary Manning

Wednesday, July 30, 2003 | 11:24 a.m.

Rick Bowman recalls his fiancee Robin Lee Mills sitting next to him Monday night under the grape-lined trellis on the back porch of the two-acre horse ranch they just recently moved to in Blue Diamond, contemplating their future together.

"You better always treat me good Rick, because I'm a flower -- a magnolia," the 41-year-old divorced mother of a teenaged daughter told Bowman, a 44-year-old father of three.

"Why a magnolia?" Bowman asked.

"A magnolia tree is strong but the petals of its flowers are delicate," she said.

Hours later, at 10:45 p.m., while chasing their three dogs that escaped from the yard of the dream home she had picked out a month earlier, Mills and Jim Cullen, 40, Bowman's best friend, were killed after being struck by cars traveling along State Route 160, a stone's throw from the house that is a dozen miles from the Interstate 15 turnoff. The accident also took the life of Roscoe, Mills' border collie.

Today Bowman, a Southern Nevada resident for 10 years and a commerical manager of Henderson Chevrolet, struggles to make sense of what happened.

"I told her if the dogs ever get out, let them run, they'll come back," he said as he sat inside the house amid still unpacked boxes and sparce furnishings. Today was to be the day the couple moved their 16 Spanish-Arabian horses into the stables Bowman and Cullen, a father of three, were starting to build Monday night and planned to finish Tuesday.

"What I believe Robin would want is for me to live our dream," Bowman said. "That dream was to have the finest horse ranch in Southern Nevada. She got see her dream of moving into her ranch. I will go forward with our dream of creating Del Rey Performance Horses."

Mills' 13-year-old daughter Taylor, who had planned to live with the couple after they married in December, was vacationing in South Carolina with her father when she received news that her mother, the operations manager and flight coordinator at The Charter Group, a charter flight company, had been killed.

At least two vehicles were involved in the accident, Nevada Highway Patrol Sgt. Thom Jackson said. One of the victims, Cullen, was struck twice, the other, Mills, was hit once. Both died at the scene. Drivers of the two vehicles that struck the victims stopped at the accident scene and two other motorists also gave troopers statements about the accident, Jackson said.

"Preliminary investigation points to pedestrian error," Jackson said, noting. "I'd be very surprised if there were charges filed."

Bowman recalled the incident: "I was cleaning up when the dogs got out and Robin and Jim went after them. Kim, Jim's wife, was holding their 2-month-old daughter, Samantha, and yelled, 'They've been hit!' I said, 'Which dogs were hit?' She shouted, 'Not the dogs, Jim and Robin!"

Bowman ran about 50 yards to the road and saw Jim lying there.

"A man passing by told me he was CPR-trained and told me to go look for the other injured person. I found Robin lying in the ditch under the blue 'Adopt a Highway' sign. "I felt her neck for a pulse and she had a faint one. I told her, 'Baby, wake up, wake up, baby.' She exhaled and she was dead."

Bowman said he and Mills had moved to the remote area to give their children an opportunity to be closer to nature and enjoy the chickens, horses and other features of rural living. He had met Mills a year earlier while closing the deal on a Chevy Blazer she had purchased from the dealership where he works.

Bowman said he has lost the love of his life and says he never again will marry. He said Cullen was "not just my friend. He was a brother. He was the most phenominal horse trainer I ever knew. He could calm a horse down by just touching its muzzle."

Both the man and the woman loved animals, friends said.

Cullen worked at the Bonnie Springs Ranch Old Nevada, which has a petting zoo filled with animals, including horses.

"Everyone here was a friend of Jim's," said Sue Austin, who has worked at the ranch for seven years.

Bicyclists have often complained that drivers seem to go faster than the 65 mph posted speed limit along Blue Diamond Road.

Bowman said that even if the speed limit was breached in the accident that killed his wife, he does not view what happened as a crime.

"I want the people who hit Jim and Robin to know that I forgive them," Jim said, noting that Kim asked him to express the same feelings. "I know they feel bad about what happened. It was just a terrible accident.

"I'm just as guilty of speeding along that road as anyone."

On Tuesday Bowman walked along the area where Mills died. In the weeds he spotted her pink scrunchie.

"I put the scrunchie on the rear-view mirror of my pickup truck to forever remind me to slow down," Bowman said. "It is only a matter of arriving 10 minutes later to go the speed limit. I hope others get the message to slow down."

Memorial Funds for the children have been set up at Nevada State Bank in the names of Robin Mills and James Cullen. Donations can be made at any branch, Rick Bowman said.