Nancy Metayer Bowen was shot overnight and found after city colleagues noticed she was missing from scheduled meetings, police say.

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — A probable cause affidavit says the husband of Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen shot her three times with a shotgun inside their home, used a pillow to muffle the blasts and went downstairs to sleep before her body was discovered the next day.

Investigators say the case moved quickly from a welfare check to a murder arrest after Metayer Bowen failed to appear for city business on April 1. Stephen Bowen, 40, was jailed on first-degree murder and evidence tampering charges after police said a relative called 911 and reported that Bowen had admitted his wife was dead. The killing stunned Coral Springs and ricocheted through Florida Democratic politics, where Metayer Bowen also served in a leadership role.

The affidavit says concern began Wednesday morning when Metayer Bowen did not show up for a scheduled city commission meeting. Colleagues tried to call and text her. A city staffer also reached out to Stephen Bowen, who replied that he had texted his wife and that she was not answering. Officers went to the couple’s home in the 800 block of Northwest 127th Avenue at about 10:20 a.m. No one answered the door. No cars were in the driveway. A neighbor told police she had seen Metayer Bowen walking her dog around midnight but had not seen her since. As officers stayed with the case, they shifted from checking on an absent elected official to investigating something darker.

By early afternoon, detectives had more than a missed meeting. Police said they saw damage on the second floor of the house that appeared consistent with projectile force, with drywall debris below. They tracked Stephen Bowen’s pickup truck to an apartment complex in Plantation and watched him hand off what appeared to be a long-gun bag to another man. Then came the 911 call that changed the investigation. According to police, Bowen’s uncle said Bowen had come to his house around 10 a.m., told him he had “done something” to his wife and said she was “not alive.” When asked why, the affidavit says Bowen replied that he “couldn’t take it anymore.” Officers entered the home for a safety sweep and found Metayer Bowen dead in a second-floor bedroom.

Investigators said the body was in bed and wrapped in blankets and garbage bags. They also reported finding three spent shotgun shells and a pillow with burn marks and string, which they described as being fashioned into a makeshift silencer. Police say Bowen later told his uncle that he shot his wife three times during the night and then went downstairs to sleep. Another detail in the affidavit widened the timeline: Bowen’s mother told investigators he had called her the previous afternoon and said he had a “panic attack” at work and planned to speak with his wife. Police did not say in the affidavit what happened in the home before the shooting, and court records available that day did not lay out a fuller motive beyond the statement attributed to Bowen.

Metayer Bowen’s public life gave the case immediate weight far beyond the neighborhood where officers gathered. The city says she was first elected in 2020, reelected in 2024 and appointed vice mayor in December 2024. City records describe her as the first Black and Haitian American woman elected to the Coral Springs City Commission. Her biography says she worked as an environmental scientist and had focused on water quality, public health, disaster response and environmental justice before and during her time in office. In a statement released after her death, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried called her a “brilliant barrier-breaker” and a close friend. The city later said Metayer Bowen died April 1 and left behind a legacy of service, inclusion and community leadership.

The legal case moved almost as fast as the initial investigation. Police said Stephen Bowen was taken into custody in Plantation at about 2:35 p.m. on April 1 after officers converged on the apartment complex where they had been watching him. Investigators said the man with him told police the two were Freemasons who were supposed to discuss an upcoming meeting and that he did not know of any crime before officers arrived. According to police, Bowen had removed the tag from his truck and asked the man to take a gun bag and ammunition boxes. At a first appearance on April 2, a judge found probable cause and ordered Bowen held without bond. He was booked on first-degree premeditated murder and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. As of the latest public updates, police had not announced any additional suspects and said there was no broader threat to the community.

Outside the legal file, the case also produced a dispute over public understanding of what happened before the killing. After some outlets reported on earlier calls for service at the couple’s home, the city issued a statement saying several reports were inaccurate and misleading in describing those calls as domestic violence incidents. City officials said all publicly releasable information had been provided but that the homicide investigation remained active. That left two realities side by side in the public record: a detailed affidavit describing what police say happened inside the house, and unresolved questions about whether anyone close to the couple saw signs of trouble beforehand. For many in Coral Springs, the collapse from public service into private violence was as hard to process as the crime itself.

Stephen Bowen remained jailed without bond as the homicide case moved forward, and the city continued to mourn a vice mayor whose absence from a routine meeting was the first sign that something was wrong. The next major milestone is the filing and scheduling that will move the murder case deeper into Broward County court.

Author note: Last updated April 23, 2026.