Rowland’s ex-girlfriend says she saw him cleaning weapon, blood out of his car

The former girlfriend of the man accused of murdering Samantha Josephson testified Wednesday afternoon she saw him cleaning a knife and blood out of his car hours after the late student’s death.

Maria Howard said Nathaniel Rowland, on trial for Josephson’s murder, was at her house on March 28, 2019, just hours before Josephson went missing. Rowland told Howard he planned to stay the night but left after she fell asleep at 1:30 a.m., Howard said in the longest testimony of the trial so far.

Howard, the 16th prosecution witness, was questioned by prosecutor April Sampson as the state continued building a case against Rowland on the trial’s third day at the Richland County courthouse.

Rowland loved to party in Five Points, Howard testified, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to slip out after she fell asleep.

On March 28, she woke up in the middle of the night and noticed Rowland wasn’t there, she testified. She tried calling him on both of his cell phones, but he didn’t answer, she said.

“I was upset because I knew I had to go to work and I don’t like being late for work,” said Howard, who had a 7 a.m. shift at McDonald’s on Garners Ferry Road just off the Rosewood intersection.

Rowland, 27, is accused of abducting and killing Josephson, a 21-year-old University of South Carolina senior, in March 2019. Josephson entered a car outside a bar in the Five Points nightclub district that she mistakenly thought was her Uber ride. Hunters found her body in a field 65 miles from Columbia in the afternoon of the day she was reported missing.

Rowland has pleaded not guilty. If convicted of Josephson’s murder and kidnapping, he could be sentenced to life without parole.

Testimony about Rowland’s car

On the morning of March 29, a Friday, Rowland returned to Howard’s house. It was hours after Josephson was stabbed and scratched more than 100 times.

Howard had given Rowland her work shirt to wash and had left her McDonald’s work hat in the back of his car. Howard was running late to work, so she went outside and asked Rowland where her shirt was. Rowland didn’t have it on him, so he left and returned 10 minutes later. Her shirt was wet and her hat was missing.

When she asked where her hat was, Rowland said, “It’s in the country,” Howard testified.

“Why is it in the country?” Howard testified.

“It had blood on it,” Rowland said, according to Howard’s testimony.

“Why?” Howard pressed.

Rowland told her to “mind my business,” she said.

As Rowland drove her to work in his 2017 black Chevrolet Impala, they stopped to get gas and groceries. That’s when Howard said she noticed the blood in the back seat. A sheet covered much of the blood in the backseat, but the sheet wasn’t laid perfectly, so som blood was visible.

Again, she asked Rowland why there was blood in the backseat.

“Mind my business,” Rowland told her, according to Howard’s testimony.

Howard got to work 45 minutes late, and when she returned home — Rowland had failed to pick her up after work, she said —she was angry and began banging on the door.

Rowland was “shook” and looked “like he had seen a ghost” when she saw him, Howard said. Howard went inside and showered, and when she got out, Rowland was washing out his car. She said she smelled chlorine.

Upon questioning by defense attorney Alicia Goode, Howard said the cleaning supplies had her DNA on them because Rowland had retrieved them from her house.

‘It all makes sense now’

Later Friday, Rowland and Howard were driving to Howard’s mother’s house to pick up rent money, she said. Howard was driving the car when Rowland put on blue, surgical gloves and began cleaning a multi-tool with wipes.

After that, two of Rowland’s friends came over, and they went out to Five Points. She asked why he would take a car to a popular area while there was still blood in it.

Again, he told her to “mind my business.”

After Rowland left, Howard turned on the news and saw the now-recognized footage of Josephson standing outside the Bird Dog nightclub at 715 Harden St., with the Chevrolet Impala on the curb. She recognized it as Rowland’s Impala because of the dirt on it.

“It all makes sense now,” Howard testified, recalling the moment.

Howard didn’t call the police after seeing the blood in Rowland’s car because, “I was scared for my life.”

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she testified.

Under cross-examination by Goode, a public defender, Howard said she was upset with Rowland because he had been late taking her to work.

Asked why she continued to stay with Rowland if she knew there was blood in the car, Howard testified that she needed the car to go pick up her young daughter and “had no choice.”

When Goode asked Howard why she put her young daughter’s car seat in the car’s back seat with the blood, Howard said, “Where else is she going to be — she can’t sit in the front seat.” (In South Carolina, children who use car seats are governed by strict laws about where they can sit.)

Asked by Goode why she initially told police investigators that she did not know there was blood in the car’s back seat area, Howard testified that she had been too tired to think straight. After a few days, she did tell police about the blood, she said.

In further re-direct questioning by prosecutor Sampson, Howard repeated that her fear of Rowland kept her from leaving him.

“I was scared for my life and my child,” she testified. “I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Testimony about evidence

The day’s last and 17th prosecution witness, State Law Enforcement Division Lt. Todd Schenk, was on the stand for two hours while he underwent questioning by prosecutor Dan Goldberg about evidence in the case.

Schenk, who is in charge of SLED’s crime scene analysis division, testified in detail about evidence found at both the field in Clarendon County where Josephson’s body was found. He also testified about evidence found in the car Rowland was driving when he was arrested in Columbia on March 30 after city police pulled him over near Five Points. .

Schenk participated in gathering evidence at both scenes. His testimony covered dozens and dozens of pieces of evidence, from numerous photographs taken in Clarendon County of the victim’s body and surroundings to the blood-soaked interior of Rowland’s Chevrolet Impala.

Schenk is slated to undergo cross-examination by Rowland’s defense attorneys when trial starts Thursday at 9:30 a.m. at the Richland County courthouse in downtown Columbia.

(A complete account of Schenk’s testimony will be published online in Thursday’s thestate.com and in Friday’s State newspaper.)

This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Rowland’s ex-girlfriend says she saw him cleaning weapon, blood out of his car."