Sowers was attacked after spending a Friday evening with friends in a bar. Because his wallet was stolen, he remained unidentified at Johns Hopkins Hospital for more than a day. His wife, who was in Chicago at the time, began to worry that something had happened to him because he failed to return phone calls or text messages, and his friends in Baltimore couldn't track him down.
With the help of city police, Anna Sowers learned that there was an unidentified man at Hopkins who had been found unconscious in the street. When she arrived at the hospital - nearly a full day after the attack - her husband's face was so badly bruised and swollen that she had trouble identifying him.
For months after the beating, Anna Sowers would rub Burt's Bees balm on his lips to keep them from drying as he lay unresponsive in bed, she said in an interview last year with The Sun. It was a tip she had learned from a nurse.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in Thursday's Maryland section misreported the sentences for three teenagers in the beating and robbery of Zachary Sowers 10 months ago in Baltimore. Arthur Jeter, 18, Wilburt Martin, 19, and Eric L. Price, 17, were sentenced to 30 years in prison each, with all but eight years suspended. The article also reported incorrectly that Jeter and Martin had watched the attack from a car. Prosecutors said the teens could not have seen the attack from where they were seated.
The Sun regrets the errors.
Ten days after the attack in the 300 block of S. Robinson Street, four teenagers were arrested. Police discovered that the teenagers had used Sowers' credit card to rent two movies - D?j? Vu and Smokin' Aces - and reviewed surveillance camera footage from a gas station that showed the car they drove.
Arthur Jeter, 18; Wilburt Martin, 19; Eric L. Price, 17; and Ramos were charged with attempted first-degree murder, robbery and related offenses. In December, Price, Jeter and Martin pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery after agreeing to testify against Ramos, who was accused of beating Sowers while Price watched. The other two had observed from the car.
In exchange for their guilty pleas, Price, Jeter and Martin received 30-year prison terms with all but 15 years suspended. They stand to serve about eight.
Ramos, the ringleader, was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to robbery and attempted first-degree murder.
Anna Sowers, who had nothing but praise for the city police detectives who worked on her husband's case, said after the court hearing that the sentences "disgusted" her. "I feel that today, justice was not served at all," she said. "I feel like I've got no rights."
Amid all the crimes last year in Baltimore, the brutal attack on Sowers struck a chord. Politicians promised to step up law enforcement.
Anna Sowers told a reporter that she wanted politicians to do something about crime. "It's people like me and Zach who will make Baltimore a better city," she said. "I should be able to walk two blocks to my car at night and feel safe."
