Pittsburgh synagogue shooter seeks exhumation of long-dead dad’s remains to prove paternity

PITTSBURGH — Lawyers for the gunman who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue request a court order to exhume the body of his long-dead father.

Robert Bowers’ lawyers want the body exhumed for a DNA test after federal prosecutors raised questions about paternity during the penalty phase of Bowers’ trial for the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Bowers, a 50-year-old truck driver from suburban Baldwin, was convicted in June on 63 criminal counts in the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack. A federal jury has to decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without parole.

The defense, trying to show that Bowers has a family history of mental illness, has introduced evidence that his father, Randall Bowers, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The defense asserts Robert Bowers also has schizophrenia and opened fire at the synagogue out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to commit a genocide against white people.

Randall Bowers died by suicide in 1979 on the eve of his own rape trial. At trial last week, prosecutors sought to cast doubt on whether he was Robert Bowers’ biological father. The defense asks a judge today to clear up the matter by ordering the exhumation of Randall Bowers’ body.