Man dismembers girlfriend in Quarter; cooks body parts

nola.com ^ | 10/18/06 | unknown

[beyond the sea]

A suicide note in the pocket of a man who jumped off the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel late Tuesday led police to the grisly scene of his girlfriend’s murder, where they found her charred head in a pot on the stove, her legs and feet baked in the oven and the rest of her dismembered body in trash bag in the refrigerator, according to police and the couple’s landlord.

The man, Zackery Bowen, a tall man in his mid 20s with long blond hair, claimed in the note to have killed his girlfriend, Adrian “Addie” Hall, on Oct. 5, according to police. Hall was also in her mid 20s.

In the five-page note, Bowen claimed he strangled Hall in the bathtub, then dismembered her body before taking it in pieces to the kitchen, police said. An autopsy conducted today shows that Hall was in fact manually strangled, police said. It also appears that Hall’s body was cut up after she died, police said.

“He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it,” one officer said

[MeanWestTexan]

Actually, while picking on Houston, there's this one:

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=74443

[MeanWestTexan]

Ask your mother, I'm busy.

[najida]

You called?

[Xenalyte]

Montrose doesn't equal Houston any more than Memorial or Tanglewood or the Fifth Ward do. :)

[SlowBoat407]

It's now the realm of art school freaks and proudly boasts it's the most haunted place in the country. I couldn't get out of there fast enough when I was visiting.

[Xenalyte]

Well, I'll be damned. Right down the street from me! (Unfortunately, I'll be in the booming metropolis that is Plantersville, Texas for most of that.)

[MeanWestTexan]

Hey, I got married at the River Oaks Country Club; I know it's nice.

Just wet.

[Xenalyte]

Savannah is the most haunted place in the country?

It just made my must-visit list.

(But the art-school freaks have to stay out of my way, or be sneezed on.)

[najida]

I happen to love the oddballs here...
we have the Savannah College of Art and Design,
that has bought up and restored buildings all over town.

The Greek Festival, St. Pats Parade, River Street, Broughton Street, gobs of fun cemetaries, the beach for kite flying, more good restaurants than you could shake a stick at.....Paula Deen, Mrs. Wilkes, The Pirates House etc.

You can be eccentric, odd, a free spirit, tattoo'd, pierced, happy, sad....whatever.....

Anyone fits in.

[Xenalyte]

And they say Texas is a big state! :)

The ROCC is one of the most beautiful interiors in the entire city. You lucky thing! (But then, you'd have to do something spectacular, to top shooting at Mrs. MWT to get her to hurry down the aisle already.)

[Xenalyte]

That's it! I'm on my way as soon as the Festival is over.

[najida]

I got a spare room!

[windcliff]

Wow!!!

[Joe 6-pack]

"I'd love to hear y'all argue that they were both normal until New Orleans screwed them up, though."

If by 'normal' you mean, 'not a practitioner of vivisection,' then yes, he appears to have been normal 'til after after he moved to the big EZ.

[LA Woman3]

Truly disturbing.

There is press conference on now.......

Link

[LA Woman3]

Killer was a cook at a local restaurant! Barf!!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Caught the last few seconds, some folks were laughing. Were they reading this thread? :)

[Tijeras_Slim]

Just a chef, or the head chef?

[LA Woman3]

Police: Man dismembered girlfriend before jumping to his death

03:19 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Lucy Bustamante / WWL-TV News Reporter

What police thought was a suicide turned out to be one of the most gruesome murders post-Katrina in New Orleans as a local man apparently killed and then dismembered his girlfriend before taking his own life by jumping off of a local hotel room.

Police cordoned off the area around the 800 block of N. Rampart following the incident.

It happened around 10 p.m. Tuesday night in the 800 block of North Rampart on the outskirts of the French Quarter, according to authorities.

Police said they found a the dismembered body of a 26-year-old woman in an apartment, thanks to a tip from her killer, 28-year-old Zackery Bowen, who jumped to his death a couple hours before from the rooftop bar of the Omni Royal Hotel. Police have not released their names.

NOPD Chief of Detectives Anthony Cannatella said the note from Bowen said that he killed his girlfriend on October 5 and spent some time deciding what to do before cutting her up and killing himself to atone for the life he took.

Cannatella said the note said that the incident occurred after an argument between the two after which Bowen strangled her. The note apparently said he then dismembered her body with a saw and a knife.

“When the detectives went into the apartment, they found (the victim) that had been dismembered,” said Captain Anthony Cannatella, an NOPD spokesman.

Sources close to the investigation said they found her legs inside of the oven, her head in a pot on the stove and the rest of her body in a trash bag.

Police said Bowen even left her family's contact information for the police inside of the apartment before he left for the Omni Royal Hotel.

“It appears he cleaned it up a lot before he left,” Cannatella said.

Investigators believed he planned the whole thing.

“I would imagine that he was in some serious mental anguish and pain,” Cannatella said. “I couldn’t fathom to think what caused him to do it. But he had to be in some serious pain to do it.”

Other than an increase in suicides in the city after Katrina, Canatella said he could not find a better explanation for this crime; neither could those watching the scene.

“There is a thin layer between being able to survive and cope and not being able to survive and cope and I think those layers, too, are getting thinner for people,” said Kari Shisler, a patron at King Bolden's Bar on North Rampart at the time of the murders.

Musician John Gross, also at the bar that evening, said he feels the city is in great despair.

“…How do we get people to come back to our city when these are things happening to the locals?” he said.

Eyewitness News learned that Bowen worked at Matassa's Grocery in the French Quarter as a delivery man and also as a bartender on ladies night at Buffa's Bar on the edge of the French Quarter. However, he stopped coming to work at Matassa's a few weeks ago and quit his job at the bar about a month ago.

"He was funny and bright and smart and he made everybody laugh, and he was just as bright as a person could be, a sweetheart. Big and tall and happy. Certainly a side of him I never saw," said Caryn Lott, owner of Buffa's Bar.

Lott said Bowen was divorced and had two children.

Bowen had been in the military, possibly serving in iraq, according to Lott. He was angry about his time served, but she could not specify exactly why.

Link

[LA Woman3]

They were laughing about Shea stadium?? I didn't catch the whole thing.