Husband of Coral Springs vice mayor booked into jail on murder charge
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — The husband of Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen has been booked into the Broward County Main Jail after the local community leader was found dead Wednesday.
Online jail records show Stephen Bowen, 40, is facing charges of premediated murder and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
An arrest report shed light on the killing, including what police said Stephen Bowen told a relative about his motive.
According to police, officers found Metayer Bowen’s body after conducting a welfare check at her home, in the 800 block of Northwest 127th Avenue, at around 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Video from Sky 10 showed several police vehicles, including a mobile command center, and crime scene tape at Metayer Bowen’s home.
In Plantation, cellphone video shows law enforcement swarming an apartment complex, where sources tell Local 10 they caught up with the vice mayor’s husband and took him into custody.
“We just heard a big bang and I said, ‘Oh my God, is that gunshots?’” a witness told Local 10 News. “We looked out the window and we see SWAT cars, cop cars, just everything everywhere — guns drawn.”
Metayer Bowen, elected to the city commission in 2020, was described in her official city biography as the first Black and Haitian American woman to serve as a Coral Springs commissioner.
She was an environmental scientist by trade and held degrees from Florida A&M and Johns Hopkins universities.
On Wednesday, condolences poured in from local leaders.
Her family also released a statement, saying “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.”
Stephen Bowen appeared in bond court Thursday where he was ordered to be held at the Broward County Main Jail without bond.
Anyone who is experiencing domestic violence is urged to contact law enforcement or the Florida Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-500-1119.
