Laura Cowan: Survival, Conviction, and Aisha’s Law

Laura Cowan is a Cleveland-based domestic violence survivor, foundation founder, and legislative advocate who escaped years of captivity, torture, and forced polygamy at a remote Riverside County, California property in 1999 after smuggling a handwritten plea for help to a post office clerk. Her abuser is serving seven consecutive life sentences, and Cowan has spent the years since counseling other survivors, testifying in support of Ohio’s Aisha’s Law, and running a foundation that has helped hundreds of women leave abusive homes.

What Happened in Aguanga

By 1998, Cowan and her children were living under the control of a self-styled polygamist born Richard Boddie Jr., who had renamed himself Mansa Musa Muhummed, at a property in Aguanga, a remote community in Riverside County.¹ Muhummed kept multiple wives and fathered numerous children.

Cowan and other women were confined to a locked garage with no running water, no heat, and no toilet. Two mattresses lay on the floor. Plastic bottles served as a bathroom.² Children were denied food as punishment, hung upside down, and forced to beat one another. Muhummed controlled the household through terror, keeping children close and threatening to kill them if any of the women tried to run.³

The Letter That Got Her Out

Cowan’s first attempt failed. Allowed briefly into the backyard, she wrote “help” on a piece of paper and threw it into a neighbor’s yard. A social worker did a wellness check, but no rescue followed.⁴

Over time, she secretly composed a longer handwritten letter documenting the abuse. Accounts describe it as somewhere between 12 and 26 pages. She hid it under her dress. When Muhummed took her to a rural post office, a stranger distracted him for a moment, and Cowan slid the letter across the counter to the clerk, who took it with a nod.⁴

On April 6, 1999, Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies raided the property.¹ Muhummed told Cowan to send them away. Instead, she signaled with her eyes, and a deputy called for backup.⁴ Deputies found two ex-wives and four young children locked in the garage and 11 older children living in the main house under similar conditions, 19 victims in all.²

Conviction and Sentence

The case took nearly a decade. Cowan’s testimony and secret audio recordings she made during the captivity were central to the prosecution.¹ On June 11, 2008, a jury found Muhummed guilty on 25 counts, including the torture of seven children, abuse of 12 children, and false imprisonment of two wives.⁵

On February 13, 2009, Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson III sentenced him to seven consecutive life terms plus 16 years and eight months.⁶ He will not be eligible for parole for at least 65 years. Dickerson said Muhummed “showed no remorse and accepted no responsibility for his twisted behavior, and the court is sending the strongest message possible.”⁷ Muhummed is incarcerated at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California.¹

Rebuilding in Cleveland

Cowan spent more than a year in battered women’s shelters before returning to her hometown of Cleveland in 2001.⁸ She has said it took eight years of therapy for her and her children to begin healing, and that the trauma still affects their daily lives, especially around trust.⁹ According to the Los Angeles Times, the other survivors scattered after the rescue, and at least two of Muhummed’s older daughters and one of his wives later entered polygamous marriages again.¹

Cowan volunteered for nine years at the Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Center of Greater Cleveland before taking a paid role as a Resident Services Liaison and Domestic Violence Advocate at the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, where she runs workshops and supports residents affected by abuse. She also developed specialized domestic violence training for the CMHA police force.¹⁰

The Laura Cowan Foundation

Cowan founded the Laura Cowan Foundation to help women and children escaping abusive homes. Since 2016 the foundation has served over 350 women.¹⁰ Its work includes direct financial assistance for clothing and living expenses, estimated at around $500 per month per person for women it helps relocate, and a domestic violence education curriculum called “Love Doesn’t Hurt” built for schools, colleges, churches, and sororities.⁸

Her personal account was selected by the Ohio Department of Health’s Violence and Injury Prevention Program for a book on interpersonal violence distributed to agencies across the country.¹¹ She appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper program in 2013 to discuss the psychological trauma of captivity.¹² Crain’s Cleveland Business named her one of its “Women of Note” in 2014, and the Women of Color Foundation gave her the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Courage Award in 2015.¹⁰

Testimony on Aisha’s Law

In June 2019, Cowan testified before the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee in support of House Bill 3, known as Aisha’s Law. The bill was named after Aisha Fraser, a Cleveland-area woman killed by her ex-husband in 2018, and was sponsored by State Representatives Janine Boyd and Sara Carruthers.¹³ In her testimony, Cowan drew on her own rescue and her abuser’s sentence to argue for stronger protections.¹⁴

The bill proposed expanding Ohio’s definition of domestic violence to include strangulation, adding domestic violence circumstances to aggravated murder, and requiring law enforcement to use an evidence-based lethality assessment screening tool to refer high-risk victims to resources. It also proposed temporary emergency protection orders accessible outside normal court hours and $150,000 for domestic violence response training at the Police Officers’ Training Academy. The Ohio House passed the bill in 2020.¹³

How Her Story Has Been Told

A theatrical production called “Stay Alive,” based on Cowan’s life, debuted May 25, 2014, at Cleveland State University’s Main Classroom Auditorium, with proceeds going to the Laura Cowan Foundation.¹⁵ Her case was later adapted as the Lifetime television movie “Girl in the Garage.” Cowan has said she watched the film with her children and that they held each other and took deep breaths through the harder scenes.⁹

Cowan has said she uses every platform she can reach, including Cleveland radio shows such as VoiceItRadio and WOVU 95.9 FM, to talk about domestic violence, teen dating violence, and human trafficking.¹⁴ As she put it around her Anderson Cooper appearance: “There are women out there right now who are suffering and they can find help.”³

1
Los Angeles Times. Laura Cowan’s Story
2
Los Angeles Times. Aguanga Abuse Case
3
HuffPost. Laura Cowan on Anderson Cooper
4
People. Laura Cowan: Girl in the Garage
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Daily Bulletin. Polygamist Is Convicted of Abusing Family
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NBC News. Polygamist Sentenced to Seven Life Terms
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Los Angeles Times. Polygamist Sentenced
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Crain’s Cleveland Business. Laura Carmella Cowan
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News 5 Cleveland. Cleveland Woman Gets Lifetime Movie
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Laura Cowan Story. Bio
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NAASCA. Interpersonal Violence: Laura’s Story
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CNN. Psychological Trauma in Captivity
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Ohio House of Representatives. Aisha’s Law Passes Ohio House
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Ohio Legislature. Laura Cowan Proponent Testimony on HB 3
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Lorain County Health. Stay Alive Production