Two men vanished from Ulisa Chavers’ life over the course of different decades — one in the 1990s, the other in the mid-2000s. But as viewers learn in a new episode of Snapped, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen, Virginia investigators finally found that the two disappearances had a number of things in common… especially Ulisa herself. 

After Reginal Cody Bowles, Ulisa’s live-in boyfriend, stopped showing up to family gatherings from 2006 onward, Ulisa persuaded his adult family members that the freedom-loving motorcycle enthusiast had simply followed his heart toward an off-the-grid lifestyle out west. But with pressure mounting from Bowles’ family for answers, they finally turned to the police for help, uncovering Ulisa’s slowly-spun web of deception. 

The strange disappearance of Cody Bowles

Ulisa Chavers and Cody Bowles were together for 12 years as a couple, living on rural land in Louisa County, Virginia. Each had been married before, but they never officially tied the knot during their shared time together. Nonetheless, Cody’s family seemed happy to accept Ulisa into their lives. 

“I liked her,” said Cody’s son Lee, who eventually made the fateful phone call to police that alerted them to his father’s disappearance, on Snapped. “She had a lot of stories. They ended up purchasing a property in Louisa County just to have more land around them and kind of to get away from things.”

Cody’s family was accustomed to seeing him mostly on special occasions, so his absence from a 2006 Thanksgiving gathering didn’t immediately arouse their alarm. But two more years passed with no further contact from Cody — only vague and implausible answers from Ulisa about where he had gone, and why. 

“Ulisa said that he went out and met some people at the Sturgis Bike Rally, and basically stayed out there near Butte, Montana, and they were in a gang,” said Howard Porter, a former Louisa County Sheriff’s lieutenant. “They were ‘living off the grid.’”

“She said that he hated the federal government; he hated law enforcement, kind of painting him as a sovereign citizen and an outlaw biker,” added Louisa County Sheriff Donald Lowe. 

That explanation failed to satisfy investigators, but they lacked probable cause to accuse Ulisa of any crime. Their suspicions were only heightened after learning that Cody had a surgically-implanted pacemaker that required him to rely on a steady regimen of medication, and that no evidence existed that he had been filling his prescriptions, or that he’d even used his own bank account that he and Ulisa shared. 

“We couldn’t find any activity on his bank account other than her drawing money out of it,” said Lowe. “We were searching all over the country for him, and it got to the point to where I said to Lieutenant Porter, ‘Call Social Security. Cut off his Social Security, and he’ll come to us. He might be upset, but he’ll come to us.’”

Police close in on Ulisa Chavers’ deadly secret

Working alongside Social Security officials, investigators indeed halted Bowles’ monthly payments and sought warrants to search Ulisa’s phone records and the couple’s property. In early 2009 — more than two years since anyone but Ulisa had last seen Cody — she told investigators he had recently paid a visit to spend Christmas with her, and produced a deceptive digital photograph that seemed to show the two of them together. 

“You could tell that that was an old picture, but it looked like it was a picture of a picture,” said Lowe. “And it wasn’t a very good job.”

“The moment that I seen that picture and realized that she was going through the trouble of furnishing a picture of a picture,” added Lee, “I was like, ‘All right, now she’s creating evidence. She’s covering something up.’”

With a warrant to search the couple’s property, investigators deployed a cadaver dog and soon homed in on a well in the backyard. As investigators retrieved Cody’s decomposed body from the well, Ulisa waited inside the house with Carlton Johnson Jr., a former special agent with the Virginia State Police. Only then did she decide to admit that Cody never left for Montana — and that she had disposed of his body by herself. 

Chavers stopped short of confessing to playing an active role in her boyfriend’s death, claiming only that he had died of natural causes. Coupled with her ongoing collection of Bowles’ Social Security payments, police were able to charge her with multiple counts of embezzlement, as well as with improper disposal of a dead body.

A darker truth revealed: Ulisa Chavers’ first victim

The case took a darker turn after investigators interviewed Ulisa’s adult daughter from a previous marriage, who happened to live close by. To their surprise, they learned that Ulisa’s former husband, Clint Chavers, had died under mysterious circumstances in 1994, and that Ulisa had lied to her daughter for years about how his body had been taken away. 

A search at the Chavers’ former home 60 miles away unearthed Clint Chavers’ dead body, buried in a makeshift grave. A forensic anthropologist determined that fragments of his skull indicated he had sustained either a gunshot wound or “a significant blow to the head,” according to Lowe, leading police to charge her with her former husband’s murder. 

Followup forensics on Cody Bowles’ body, meanwhile, revealed lethal levels of benztropine — a drug commonly used to treat Parkinson’s disease, and one especially incompatible with Cody’s heart condition. 

“I started researching and talking to experts and toxicologists,” recalled prosecutor Rusty McGuire. “And they said a person with a defibrillator and a pacemaker should not be taking benztropine. It actually slows your heart down.”

Facing charges in two murder cases, Chavers agreed to a plea deal rather than risk facing a trial. She was sentenced to 43 years in prison and remained incarcerated until she passed away in 2021 at the age of 73. 

“It’s unfortunate how he had to die,” said Lee. “He had no idea that the enemy that was going to kill him was within his own house.”

Police believe that Chavers’ motive for murder stemmed from her determination not to lose her steady supply of money. Not only had she collected Social Security payments on two missing persons after their deaths, she also faced the prospect of losing control of the property she shared with Bowles. 

“I think her motive to kill Cody was financial,” said Porter. “He was talking about making his sons the beneficiary and executor of [his] estate. That’s going to cut her off financially.” 

“She was nicknamed ‘Black Widow,’” reflected McGuire. “Whatever she touched seemed to die.”