Charles Shourds, a controversial former Bowling Green business owner, was shot to death April 29 in a house in Joppatowne, Md.

Police there have detained a woman, Rebecca Jeanette Kinser, 43, who reportedly confessed to the shooting.

According to the Harford County (Md.) Sheriff’s Office, deputies responding at 3:25 p.m. April 29 to a house in Joppatowne found Shourds with multiple gunshot wounds in his upper body.

Kinser allegedly told deputies that Shourds was visiting her from Kentucky and had been at her apartment since Sunday or Monday of that week.

“We believe that they had a long relationship,” said Sgt. David Betz of the HCSO. “As far as what type of relationship they had, we believe that they were at least acquaintances.”

Kinser said she had been raped and beaten repeatedly by Shourds during his visit, the last time just before the shooting, according to the sheriff’s office.

Kinser allegedly told police that after the last incident, she showered, shot Shourds several times with a 9mm handgun while he lay on a couch and then went to a neighbor’s apartment to wait for deputies to arrive.

She is being held without bond and faces charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, first-degree assault and using a handgun in the commission of a felony.

Shourds, 60, lived in Beaver Dam, having served as the director of Ohio County Emergency Medical Services and as a captain with the Beaver Dam Volunteer Fire Department. He was also an attorney with a practice in Nashville.

Shourds’ connection to Bowling Green, however, where he owned Uncle Sam’s Exotic Girls for about 20 years, earned him a measure of local notoriety.

Uncle Sam’s operated out of a building in the riverfront section of the U.S. 31-W By-Pass and East First Avenue.

According to a Feb. 16, 1986, Daily News story, Shourds and five other people were arrested at the nightclub two days earlier after an undercover investigation by the Bowling Green Police Department.

Shourds was charged with third-degree promoting prostitution and permitting prostitution.

The city enacted an ordinance in 1990 to regulate Uncle Sam’s and similar businesses offering sexually explicit entertainment, creating licensing requirements for owners and employees and restricting where such establishments could be located within the city.

“That ordinance came out of this incident,” said Bruce Wilkerson, current Bowling Green city commissioner, who was a city police officer involved in the investigation that led to Shourds’ arrest.

Uncle Sam’s closed in 2004 when the city bought the building, which was owned by the Bale family of Horse Cave, and demolished it as part of its downtown redevelopment effort.

Shourds relocated to 221 Gordon Ave., where he operated DW’s Dancing Women.

Leaders of nearby St. Joseph Catholic Church protested the move, but to no avail.

After the city ordinance regulating sexually explicit entertainment, Shourds operated his clubs with a bar in the main area, and a private club in the rear of the building.

That private club was incorporated as SMI Private Club Inc. and was legally considered a separate business, Shourds describing it as a tenant of his.

Shourds was later evicted from the Gordon Avenue property for failure to pay roughly $25,000 in back rent.

In 2007, Shourds purchased the site of Big Daddy’s Bar and Grill at 306 Old Morgantown Road. Residents in the Forest Park neighborhood where the business was located were concerned that Shourds would bring his private club to the new location, filling a petition with 1,000 signatures opposing a liquor license for Shourds.

At a meeting of the Forest Park Sunrisers Neighborhood Association in April 2007, Shourds attended but did not speak – even when association president Valerie Sharber asked aloud whether he was present.

Shourds later called his covert attendance a “fact-finding mission.”

A month later, he announced that he would sell the business without relocating.

In spite of the reputation he developed in Bowling Green, those who worked with him in Ohio County remembered Shourds differently.

“He was really instrumental in getting the county EMS service started,” said Jeff James, a paramedic who has worked for the Ohio County EMS since 1980 and worked alongside Shourds his first few years there.

James is also a volunteer firefighter and worked alongside Shourds for Beaver Dam.

“He was one of the smartest individuals I ever saw on a fire scene,” James said. “He wasn’t the top officer, but the higher-ups would often defer to Charles because he had a fire science degree.”

James laughs at the mention of the nightclubs Shourds used to own and operate in Bowling Green – Ohio County is a dry county and a business venture of that nature would not have been successful there.

“Everybody knew he had (the clubs),” James said. “He was always looking for ways to make money.”