The 1998 death of a Nash County woman may have sparked the relationship authorities allege ended with the murder of Julie Bowling.

Mark Bowling, then 27, directed Peggy Joyner Parker's funeral on Oct. 9, 1998, at Bowling Funeral Home in Rocky Mount, according to Parker's death certificate.

Parker was the stepmother of then-19-year-old Rose Delores Vincent (who was Rose Delores Parker before her marriage), who, along with Mark Bowling, could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the Dec. 8 shooting death of Julie Bowling, 45.

Deputies initially reported Vincent's middle name as Deloris, but her birth certificate and marriage license show it to be Delores.

Bowling and Vincent had a short romantic relationship after the funeral, according to sources close to Vincent who asked not to be named.

"He was really friendly, so he was speaking to everybody (at Parker's funeral)," Peggy Parker's nephew, Robert Poland, said of Mark Bowling. "It didn't look to me like he was pinpointing her."

The funeral was held at the Bowling Funeral Home chapel, with about 100 people attending, said Poland, who lives in Rocky Mount. The Rev. Ruben Batchelor – who also gave the eulogy for Julie Bowling last week – officiated the funeral, according to Parker's Telegram obituary.

Less than a year after the funeral, Bowling married Julie Rowland.

And in August 2000, Vincent married Rodney Scott Vincent, who declined to comment for this story.

In 2005, about five years after the Vincent marriage, Mark Bowling and Rose Vincent reunited romantically, Nash County Sheriff Dick Jenkins has said.

The relationship, authorities charge, may have led to the 911 call at 7:30 a.m. Dec. 8 reporting the death of Julie Bowling, a radiation therapist at Nash Day Hospital's cancer treatment center.

"My friend, Julie Bowling, she didn't show up for work, and she's in the garage dead," the horror-stricken coworker who found Bowling's body at her River Glenn home told the 911 operator. "She's dead."

Investigators, seeing no sign of robbery or entry into the house, quickly said they believed the shooting was not a random killing.

When the call came to Mark Bowling's cell phone to notify him of his wife's death, he was snorkeling in the waters of Crystal River, Fla.

At about 5 p.m. Dec. 9, Rose Vincent and Mark Bowling, who had returned from Florida, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

According to search warrants from the Nash County Sheriff's Office, 27-year-old Rose Vincent confessed to the shooting the day after it happened.

Vincent's childhood, by several accounts, was challenging.

When she was 9, her 17-year-old stepbrother, Richard Wayne Joyner, waited outside for 57-year-old store owner Harvey Skinner to return home from work on Dec. 1, 1988, then shot him multiple times with a 12-gauge shotgun, according to Telegram archives.

Joyner, who said he killed Skinner while robbing him for rent money, confessed to the shooting the day after it happened.

A high school dropout, Joyner was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, but his sentence was later reduced to life in prison.

The rest of Vincent's childhood was also disturbing, said Debbie Poland, Vincent's stepaunt who lives in Liberty.

Peggy Joyner Parker married Vincent's father, John Parker, in 1982, when Vincent – whose biological mother was out of the picture – was almost 3 years old.

John Parker was a controlling man filled with jealousy, Poland said. Peggy Parker wasn't allowed to visit her family or even call her mother, she said. John Parker had an abusive attitude, she said. Evenutally, all five of his stepsons moved out of the house.

At John Parker's current residence, a single-wide trailer down a long dirt path that weaves past a cotton field in rural Nash County, a sign at the driveway entrance states: "Trespassers will receive free lead if caught in the act."

A rooster prowls the yard, which is littered with old Power Wheels and other miscellaneous junk, while a tire rests against the light pole. A security camera mounted above the trailer door records anyone who may try to enter. Parker could not be reached for comment.

"Rose had a very horrible childhood," Poland said.

Dr. Robert Cochrane, a forensic psychologist at the Federal Medical Center in Butner who specializes in violence risk assessment, said a tough childhood could play a factor in a person's propensity for future violence.

"Unstable family environment is one of many risk factors," Cochrane said. "But there's a whole slew of other factors."

The Rose Vincent who allegedly shot Julie Bowling was not the Rose Vincent that one neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said he had come to know during the past six years in Middlesex.

She was a loving stay-at-home mother at her family's single-wide trailer who had only within recent months taken a job as a cashier at the Food Lion on Gold Rock Road in Rocky Mount, the neighbor said.

Vincent, who graduated from Southern Nash High School, has no prior arrest record.

The neighbor said he worries about Vincent's three children, ages 2 to 6, who don't know where their mother has gone.

"I think she regrets it wholeheartedly," the neighbor said, "but you can't take shooting somebody back."

Julie Bowling's family and coworkers are still coming to grips with that fact.

The cancer treatment center at Nash Day Hospital was closed the day Julie Bowling died and on Wednesday, the day of her funeral.

Bowling was manager of the radiation oncology department from 1984 to 2006 but had recently stepped down to become a radiation therapist. She and Mark Bowling also ran Bowling Funeral Homes, which operates facilities in Rocky Mount, Enfield and Scotland Neck.

"Julie's presence – her cheerful demeanor, knowledge, skills, pleasant personality – will be missed," her hospital coworker, Sandra Todd-Atkinson, vice president of specialty hospitals, said in a written statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends during this difficult time."

Family members have declined comment.

Vincent's court-appointed lawyer, Rick Hamlett, said the case is devastating for everyone involved.

"It's a tragic case, no matter what the outcome is going to be," he said. "It's tragic from the standpoint that Mrs. Bowling has lost her life, and it's tragic that so many other lives have been shattered."

Vincent's three young children will be spending Christmas without their mother and they don't know why, Hamlett said. Some people have anonymously contacted Hamlett to extend them a helping hand, he said.

"I don't know who these people are, but we are thankful," Hamlett said.

On Jan. 2, Mark Bowling and Rose Vincent are scheduled to make their second court appearances for a probable cause hearing.

Vincent is in the Nash County jail without bond. Bowling is being held without bond in the mental health ward in Central Prison in Raleigh because he is "extremely suicidal," Sheriff Dick Jenkins said in a request to transfer Bowling for safekeeping.

Search warrants from Nash County deputies state that Vincent confessed to the shooting and that a fax and computer files may link Bowling to a murder plan.

Assistant District Attorney Keith Werner, the prosecutor in both cases, revealed plans during the arraignment hearing Tuesday to approach them both as capital cases.

Hamlett said he hopes the state will compare Vincent's case to the last capital murder case tried in Nash County.

In 2004, Andre Edwards was convicted of kidnapping, robbing, raping and killing 30-year-old Ginger Lynn Hayes by beating her with a 30-pound tire rim and leaving her 11-month-old son in a field to die. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"If that's not a capital case, then this is not a capital case," Hamlett said, adding that several rumors surrounding the Bowling case are simply false. "Everything that is being said about this case is not in fact true. The truthfulness of the allegations will be tested in court and not in the media I hope."