At the end of May, Director of Security at Blount Memorial Hospital Raymond Barnhart received the call from the gastrointestinal lab.
“Our lab manager called and told me she was missing what looked like seven GI scopes,” said Barnhart. “She called back later and told me they realized they had another scope out for repair that had been returned, but it wasn’t back in the inventory system yet. So, they were missing a total of eight scopes, which are valued at a little over a half million dollars.”
Barnhart was one of two testifying witnesses to take the stand Tuesday afternoon during a preliminary hearing against 42-year-old Troy Lee Bowen II, Knoxville. In mid-August, Bowen was arrested and charged with one count of theft in connection to an investigation into the hospital’s missing scopes…