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NEWPORT - A mysterious Halloween phone call is leading friends to believe missing musician Barry Cowsill is alive.
At 1:12 p.m. on Halloween, a man called StageCraft studios, where Cowsill has recorded, and left an answering machine message. The caller appears to say, in a loud mock whisper, "You're never there, dude. Never. NEVER!" and hangs up.
Studio owner Frank Dwyer, who's engineered Cowsill's recent recordings, and drummer Mike Warner, who played on those sessions, believe Cowsill was the caller. And others, including Cowsill's ex-girlfriend, also are convinced.
"I'd say I'm about 80 percent certain," Warner said. "I'm trying to be a little cautious. But I've played it for a lot of people, and a lot of them, including my wife, are 100 percent sure.
"I played it for some people blind, kind of a blindfold test, for people who know Barry. I just told them to listen without telling them what to expect. They all said, 'Barry?' when they heard it. And these are people who know Barry well. To me it sounds like Barry's someplace where he's kind of whispering to avoid drawing attention."
Cowsill, 51, moved from Newport to New Orleans, where he's lived before, last summer. No one has heard from him since Sept. 2, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when he called his sister, Susan, and said he was in a warehouse surrounded by "lootin'" and "shootin'."
The Cowsills - a Newport musical family that rose to fame in the late 1960s - have conducted a media blitz in a nationwide search for their missing brother, with no luck.
Meanwhile, Lisette St. Germain, Cowsill's ex-girlfriend, said she is firmly convinced that Barry Cowsill is the cryptic caller. "It's our friend Barry," she said. "There's a not a doubt in my mind. That's an unmistakable voice."
St. Germain, daughter of former U.S. Rep. Fernand St. Germain, holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Brown University and a doctorate in Slavic linguistics, also from Brown. "I have a substantial amount of experience in this area," she said. "I have no doubt that's him."
And Halloween, she said, is Barry's favorite holiday.
John Flanders of Portsmouth also heard the recording and believes Cowsill called. Flanders grew up with the Cowsills in Newport in the 1960s. Flanders, a musician, is six years older than Barry and got to know him better in adulthood. "I can't be 100 percent sure, but I'm betting that's him calling," Flanders said. "I have hope - if not complete faith - that it's Barry pulling something on us."
Barry's brother Richard Cowsill, who moved from Middletown to New Mexico this year, said he heard an audio file Warner provided. Richard is now looking for a firm to match previous Barry Cowsill voice recordings with the phone message.
"I believe it's him," Richard Cowsill said last week. "I know it's him."
Warner said he filed a report with Newport police. Newport detectives are expected to initially examine Warner's report before possibly involving other agencies.
Warner said he hopes phone technology might pinpoint the call's origin. "It would give us a way to narrow the area of search," Warner said.
Barry Cowsill has lived a bumpy life and had planned to enter a Los Angeles-area substance abuse rehabilitation center before Katrina hit, family members said. During his adult life, he's lived in various parts of the country, worked countless jobs and at times has taken on aliases.
St. Germain, Cowsill's companion for two years, said that during tough times, he would retreat, sometimes sleeping in local parks or on benches for a night. "Whenever he felt rejected, that's what he would do," she said.
Cowsill has a grown daughter, a grown stepdaughter, two teenage children and two grandchildren. Warner said they are his main concern, that they have a right to know if Barry is alive.
"Look, Barry's an adult, if he wants to disappear, to hide, that's up to him," Warner said. "But his children shouldn't have to suffer the burden of not knowing."
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