Coral Springs vice mayor was shot three times with shotgun by husband, report says

When Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen failed to appear at a commission meeting Wednesday, her colleagues immediately sensed something was wrong. They texted her husband, Stephen Bowen, asking if he had heard from her — not yet knowing that, hours later, he would be arrested and accused of shooting her to death.

Metayer Bowen, 38, had been scheduled to attend two meetings that morning, one at 8:30 a.m. and another at 9 a.m., police said. Instead, she was found dead later that day in the second-floor primary bedroom of the home she shared with her husband.

According to Bowen’s arrest affidavit, his wife’s body had been wrapped in blankets. Bowen, 40, told a relative he’d shot her three times with a shotgun, the affidavit says. He now faces charges of premeditated murder and tampering with physical evidence.

No attorney was listed for Bowen in court records as of Thursday afternoon.

Luwam Ghermay, an administrative manager in Coral Springs, had received a text from Metayer Bowen’s phone around 8 a.m. titled “Discussion Items” but did not hear from her again, according to police. Ghermay then reached out to her husband, asking if he could let Metayer Bowen know they were looking for her.

“Hey Luwam, texted her. She is not picking up,” Bowen replied, according to the arrest report. When Ghermay followed up, noting that Metayer Bowen had missed both a commission meeting and a charter school board meeting, Bowen asked where she was and said her car was not at their home.

Ghermay then urged him to call police Maj. Edmond DeRosa, who had already directed officers to respond to the residence, on the 800 block of Northwest 127th Avenue.

Officers first arrived at the Bowen home at 10:21 a.m. Wednesday but saw no cars in the driveway and were unable to make contact with anyone inside. A neighbor told police they had seen Metayer Bowen walking her dog around midnight. Officers attempted to call Bowen several times but received no response.

About an hour later, Bowen’s parents, Lincoln and Yvonne Bowen, arrived at the home. They had spoken with Metayer Bowen’s mother, who said police were trying to locate her daughter. Bowen’s parents said they had no way to enter the house and that the last time they had spoken with their son was around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

During that conversation, Bowen, who is a certified radiologic technologist, told them he had experienced a panic attack at work — listed in the affidavit as Delray Medical Center — and planned to speak with his wife about it.

His mother told police she was unaware of any marital problems between the couple, according to the affidavit.

Around 12:30 p.m., officers returned to the home. This time, one officer noticed “defects” on the exterior of the second floor that appeared “indicative of outward force” and “consistent with damage caused by projectiles,” detectives wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Police later located Bowen using license plate reader data, which showed his Ford F-150 in a parking lot at an apartment building at 551 NW 42nd Ave. in Plantation.

Detectives say Bowen met with another man and handed him a bag that looked like a firearm case. The man then went into the building with the bag and later came out without it. Police detained Bowen at the scene.

The man later told police that he and Bowen were both Masons and that he thought they were getting together that day to discuss a meeting. He said he did not know what Bowen had done but recalled Bowen saying, “They’re here for me,” as officers moved in.

Around 1:51 p.m., Coral Springs police received a 911 call from Bowen’s uncle Owen Small, who told dispatchers his nephew had come to his home earlier that morning and admitted he had “done something” to his wife and that she was no longer alive.

At that point, police decided to send in a SWAT team and forced their way into the Bowen home through a rear sliding glass door. Inside, officers found Metayer Bowen’s body in the couple’s bed. She was pronounced dead at 2:24 p.m.

Later that evening, detectives went to interview Small, who said Bowen had showed up at his home around 10 a.m. and asked him to hold onto a shotgun for a couple of weeks, warning that he would need gloves or a bag to handle it.

Small said he asked Bowen if he had shot someone. According to the arrest report, Bowen replied that he had shot his wife three times the night before. Bowen said he “couldn’t take it anymore.”

Bowen stayed at Small’s home for about two hours, during which time other family members arrived and were told what happened. He eventually left alone in his truck a little after noon, saying he planned to meet with an attorney.

READ MORE: Vice mayor’s husband fatally shot her, said he ‘couldn’t take it anymore’: police

Search warrants were later carried out at the Bowens’ home and the Plantation apartment. Inside the couple’s Coral Springs home, detectives found three spent shotgun shells wrapped in blankets with the victim’s body. They also recovered a pillow with burn marks and string, which investigators believe may have been used as a makeshift silencer. A preliminary examination showed a gunshot wound to the victim’s left shoulder.

At the Plantation apartment, detectives recovered a shotgun inside the same bag they said Bowen had handed off earlier in the day.

As of late Thursday afternoon, the Bowens’ house was empty, and two holes could be seen on the second floor from the outside.

Children rollerskated, rode bikes and played basketball outside pastel-painted two-story homes in the gated community.

Neighbors said they didn’t know the couple well but would see them in passing. Metayer Bowen was often seen walking her dog.

“[Domestic violence] can happen in all kinds of neighborhoods,” said one man, who declined to give his name. “Things happen behind closed doors you never know about.”

A woman, who also declined to give her name, said she moved next door to the Bowens just a couple of weeks ago. In fact, she met a lot of her neighbors Wednesday as they tried to park their cars while police investigated.

The last time she saw Metayer Bowen was Monday or Tuesday, walking her dog.

The woman said she was grateful she and her children didn’t hear or see any violence or gunshots.

“God kept me from seeing or hearing anything,” she said. “It’s a lot to process. I didn’t sleep last night. It’s a lot to know that was all going on over there.”

At the apartment building in Plantation, where Bowen’s friend lived and where Bowen was arrested, neighbors had limited information. Nobody answered the door to his friend’s apartment on Thursday .

This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 1:04 PM.