MEDIA ARTICLE: Coral Springs vice mayor killed by husband with shotgun muzzled by pillow, police say (Sun Sentinel, 4-2-26)

 

Flowers are placed in front of Coral Springs City Hall in honor of Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen on Thursday, April 2, 2026. Metayer Bowen was found dead at her home Wednesday morning, and her husband, Stephen Bowen, has been charged with premeditated murder. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Coral Springs vice mayor killed by husband with shotgun muzzled by pillow, police say

By Angie DiMichele | adimichele@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel and Shira Moolten | smoolten@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel

PUBLISHED: April 2, 2026 at 7:15 AM EDT | UPDATED: April 2, 2026 at 6:52 PM EDT

The husband of Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen shot her dead at their home with a shotgun that had been muzzled with a pillow, according to court records released on Thursday.

Officers found the vice mayor’s body, wrapped in a comforter and black trash bags, in the bedroom of her home in the 800 block of Northwest 127th Avenue on Wednesday after her co-workers became concerned that she had not shown up for scheduled city meetings.

Her husband, Stephen Bowen, is charged with first-degree murder.

Metayer Bowen was on the cusp of a major political undertaking, killed days before a planned early-April announcement that she was entering the crowded Democratic primary for the party nomination to run in the Broward-Palm Beach county district currently held by embattled U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

Many people in the political world — including local, state and federal officials and party leaders — said they had spoken with her in recent days about her plans.

City employees first noticed something was wrong when Metayer Bowen stopped responding to texts on Wednesday morning and did not appear for scheduled meetings, including a 9 a.m. City Commission meeting, according to a probable cause affidavit.

At 8 a.m., a city employee received a text message sent from Metayer Bowen’s phone number, titled “Discussion Items,” that was related to a meeting she was scheduled to attend 30 minutes later, the affidavit said.

The employee texted Stephen Bowen about an hour after receiving the text from the vice mayor’s phone, asking if he could tell his wife to contact her, the affidavit said. Bowen responded that he “texted her. She is not picking up.”

“She didn’t show up for this morning’s Charter School board and commission meeting,” the employee responded.

“Where is she?” Bowen said, according to the affidavit. “Her car is not at home.”

Coral Springs Police Chief Brad Mock, who was at the commission meeting that Metayer Bowen missed, notified other police personnel about his concerns. Two officers were sent to the home she shared with Bowen. When they got there, no cars where outside and no one answered the door. A neighbor reported seeing Metayer Bowen walking her dog about midnight but had not seen her since.

Police tried several times to contact Bowen, but he did not respond, according to the affidavit. His parents arrived at the home later that morning after Metayer Bowen’s mother requested they check on her daughter. They said that they had no way of getting into the house. The last time they talked to Bowen was Tuesday, they said, when he mentioned that he had a panic attack at work and was going to speak to Metayer Bowen about it.

His mother told police she did not know of any “marital issues” between them. Bowen had also not responded to any of her calls, she told officers.

While investigating outside the Bowen home on Wednesday afternoon, a detective noticed damage to the exterior of the home’s second floor, including crumbled stucco and exposed wiring. “The outward, explosive-like damage was consistent with damage caused by projectiles,” the probable cause affidavit said.

Multiple police agencies began surveilling Bowen’s car, a black Ford F-150. They tracked him to a parking lot in Plantation shortly before 2 p.m., where he met with a man and handed him what appeared to be a gun-carrying case. Later, officers interviewed the man, who said he and Bowen are both Masons and that they met to discuss an “upcoming meeting.” During the meeting, Bowen asked him to hold a gun bag and ammo for him, he said, according to the affidavit.

About that same time on Wednesday afternoon, Coral Springs Police received a 911 call from a man who identified himself as Bowen’s uncle. Bowen had come to his house about 10 a.m. that day, the uncle said, according to the affidavit, and said that he “did something to her” and “she was not alive,” referencing Metayer Bowen.

By that point, police said they had enough evidence to force their way into the couple’s home. In the bed of the second-floor bedroom, they found Metayer Bowen’s body, wrapped in blankets and black garbage bags. A sergeant recognized the vice mayor after finding her body in the bedroom just before 2:30 p.m.

A few minutes later, police arrested Bowen in Plantation.

When police interviewed Bowen’s uncle later that day, the uncle told them that Bowen had come to his house earlier that morning and gave him a gun and told him he needed him to hold it for a couple of weeks, according to the affidavit.

“Stephen Bowen explained that he shot her three times with a shotgun the previous night and then slept downstairs,” the affidavit said. “When asked why, Stephen Bowen said that he ‘couldn’t take it anymore’.

When police searched the home in Coral Springs, they found three spent shotgun shells wrapped in the comforter with Metayer Bowen’s body, and a pillow with burn marks and string “as if it were fashioned as a makeshift silencer,” according to the affidavit.

Bowen is being held in the Broward Main Jail on charges of premeditated murder and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. At a first-appearance hearing in Broward court on Thursday morning, a judge ordered him held without bond.

Broward County Court

Stephen Bowen listens during a first-appearance hearing in Broward County Court on Thursday, where he was held without bond on a murder charge. (Broward County Court/Courtesy)

Metayer Bowen and her husband were married in 2022, according to their Broward County marriage license.

Bowen, 40, worked at Delray Medical Center, according to the affidavit. He has an active license as a certified radiologic technologist that was issued in 2014 by the Department of Health. He was listed as the chief operating officer of Men of St. Luke Inc., a nonprofit based in Hollywood, as of 2025, state business records show. The organization originally registered in 2009 under the name The Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge of Florida, St. Luke Lodge #530 and was described as a statewide Masonic organization.

Bowen frequently posted videos of himself at tactical shooting ranges on his personal Instagram. One video pinned to his profile depicts him on a wild boar hunt, smoking a cigar. His bio reads, “God | Husband | Armed.”

Several posts on the account also show him and Metayer Bowen celebrating their relationship.

“Three years of building, dreaming, and loving each other through everything,” he wrote in his latest post last November for their anniversary, with a photograph of him and Metayer Bowen at their wedding.

Broward County Sheriff

Stephen Bowen has been charged with murdering his wife, Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen.

No prior domestic violence filings involving the couple appear in Broward court records, and Bowen did not have any criminal history in Broward besides two misdemeanor drug arrests in 2009 and 2010 that prosecutors declined to pursue.

Metayer Bowen, 38, was first elected in 2020, won re-election in 2024 and last November was appointed by the commission to serve a second, one-year term as vice mayor, according to her bio on the city’s website. She was the first Black and Haitian-American woman to hold a seat on the City Commission and an environmental scientist who formerly served on the Broward County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in 2024 named Metayer Bowen as its Caribbean vote director in Florida, the South Florida Sun Sentinel previously reported. She also held the title of vice chair of Haitian Outreach for the Florida Democratic Party.

Her family shared a statement on Metayer Bowen’s social media on Wednesday evening.

“Throughout her years in public office, she led with integrity, compassion, and an unwavering sense of purpose,” the family’s statement said. “She believed in bringing people together, listening to those she served, and working tirelessly to create positive change in her community. To us, she was a source of strength, wisdom, and love — someone who always put others before herself.”

“While many knew her as a leader and advocate, we knew her as a sister, a daughter, and a friend whose warmth and laughter filled every room. Her legacy will live on not only in the policies she helped shape but in the countless lives she touched.”

Outside of City Hall on Thursday morning, a black van with a mobile billboard displayed portraits of Metayer Bowen and bouquets of flowers were left on the walkway outside the building.

Mayor Scott J. Brook shared a video message on social media on Thursday afternoon.

“Yesterday was an incredibly difficult and surreal day for our community,” he said. “Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer was my right hand. She was more than a colleague, she was a dear friend, a leader and a true light in our city.”

“She believed deeply in bringing people together and lifting them up. She stood up for what she believed and she fought hard for our city. Nancy’s impact goes far beyond her title, whether she was advocating for sustainability, families or simply taking the time to listen to someone, she showed us what a true public servant looks like.”

Metayer Bowen’s younger brother, Donovan Joshua Leigh Metayer, died by suicide in their family home in December at age 26. He was a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland during the 2018 mass shooting and struggled with mental health issues afterward, according to a GoFundMe online fundraiser for funeral expenses.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat representing the Orlando area, in a statement shared on social media on Wednesday said that Metayer Bowen’s family has “already experienced deep loss” with his suicide.

“Nancy and I worked side by side in the reproductive rights movement for years, and I’ve been honored to call her not just a colleague, but a dear friend,” Eskamani wrote. “She was brilliant, compassionate, and deeply committed to justice. I’m heartbroken by this loss, her future in politics and leadership was only just beginning, and our communities will feel that absence profoundly.”

Metayer Bowen was a graduate of Florida A&M University and earned her master’s degree in health science from Johns Hopkins University.

In 2011, she was an intern in the White House during the Obama administration and an intern for then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in his Tallahassee office before becoming the program manager of two nonprofit foundations in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Community members and the vice mayor’s friends are holding a candlelight vigil at City Hall from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday. People are encouraged to bring white candles and wear orange or green.

The Tamarac City Commission will hold a vigil during its regular meeting at City Hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday. A proclamation in Metayer Bowen’s honor will be presented.

Sun Sentinel staff writer Anthony Man contributed to this report.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/04/02/coral-springs-vice-mayor-nancy-matayer-bowen-murder/