Richmond County authorities have released the name of the suspect they identified in the killing of an Augusta man who was shot last week in the middle of Washington Road.
Robert Ward, 32, is wanted for murder and weapon possession in last Wednesday’s shooting death of 38-year-old John Lowden Jr., authorities said. The victim was fatally shot in the eastbound lanes on the 2800 block of Washington Road in Augusta. Deputies responded at 2:24 a.m. Wednesday and found the victim lying in the eastbound right lane, and he was pronounced dead.
The shooting followed an altercation between the two in the road between Circle K and TBonz Steakhouse, authorities say. Ward allegedly shot Lowden and then fled, but investigators used camera footage from the area to identify him as the killer.
Ward is a repeat offender and felon who spent three short stints in prison, benefitting from light sentences and lots of probation. His previous convictions involve drug dealing, obstruction of officers, theft and weapons offenses. He was last given probation for fentanyl possession and lying to cops in January. A warrant was issued on Feb. 1 for violating probation, but he was never picked up before last week’s deadly shooting.
The victim is a former Green Beret in the Army who was a Special Forces weapon sergeant with five combat deployments to Afghanistan and a deployment to Honduras. He made local headlines when he jumped from an ambulance on Nov. 19 on the way to a mental health facility in Augusta. Dressed in blue scrubs, he fled the ambulance on St. Sebastian Way at Walton Way and ran off. He was captured four days later and booked into the jail for an order to show cause warrant. At the time, he was listed as homeless.
Lowden starred as himself in a “Killer Sally,” a 2022 Netflix series about his mother, Sally McNeil. The series includes interviews with friends, family and McNeil herself. The series charts her rocky marriage with Ray McNeil and its shocking end in her husband’s Valentine’s Day murder. Sally McNeil’s children John and Shantina Lowden (from a previous relationship) also recall in the series what it was like to grow up with Ray McNeil as their stepfather and the day their mother shot him.
