Fowler was reported missing by his wife on June 20, 1999, which was a Sunday. Debra Fowler reported that her husband had left on a fishing trip and had not returned as expected. Debra Fowler told police she saw her husband's boat in the water while driving on the Kentucky 101 bridge, stopped and tried to drag it to shore when a work crew with the county jail was passing by and helped bring it in. A relative had called Fowler's workplace the previous Friday to report that he would not be in to work at Farmer's Rural Electric in Glasgow. The Warren County Sheriff's Office initially investigated the disappearance as a missing person's case but upgraded the incident to a homicide investigation when an extensive search of the Barren River and surrounding banks proved fruitless. Other details surrounding Fowler's disappearance led investigators to believe that more than one person may have been involved in the disappearance of Fowler, who was described as a neighborly outdoors man.