911 calls reveal family begging officers to break down door of vice mayor’s home

Coral Springs police released the 911 call made by the family of Stephen Bowen pleading with officers to break down the door of the vice mayor’s home.

Hours before Coral Springs police found Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen dead, her husband drove to his uncle’s house and said he had shot and killed Metayer, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Bowen, 40, showed up at his uncle’s home at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 1, asking him to hold onto a bag for a couple weeks, warning that he might need gloves, according to his uncle.

Inside the bag was a shotgun Bowen had used to kill Metayer the previous night, police said.

While Bowen was at his uncle’s house in Lauderdale Lakes, police officers visited the couple’s Coral Springs home, following up on concern that Metayer had missed two city meetings that day and wasn’t responding to text messages.

At 1:51 p.m., Bowen’s uncle and another female family member called 911 to “report a possible crime in Coral Springs.”

“The Coral Springs police is already at the house,” the woman said. “At the vice mayor’s house. Tell the police that they need to go in the house, OK?”

She added she was just there with the police, and they needed to break down the door.

When the calltaker asked if they had keys to the house, she reiterated, “Tell them they must break down the door … by whatever means.”

The dispatcher told them officers couldn’t break down the door without a reason, even though people were concerned for her wellbeing.

That’s when Bowen’s uncle took over the call.

“I’m going to give you a reason,” he said. “OK, my nephew, her husband, came to my house this morning and told me that he did something to her. I said, ‘Is she alive?’ He said, ‘no.’”

The dispatcher said she would relay the message to the officers, who eventually entered the home and found Metayer dead in a bedroom, wrapped in a comforter and garbage bag along with shotgun shells, documents show.

She was pronounced dead at 2:24 p.m.

Bowen was arrested at a friend’s apartment complex in Plantation and is now facing charges of first-degree premeditated murder and tampering with evidence.

The public defender’s office filed a motion April 6 to withdraw the public defender assigned to represent Bowen, saying it was a conflict of interest.

“Based on the seriousness of the charge, it would violate Mr. Bowen’s rights to effective assistance of counsel, due process and a fair trial to be represented by an office whose top members had a personal and professional relationship with the alleged victim,” according to the motion.

At a vigil on Friday night, those who knew the vice mayor gathered to honor her memory outside Coral Springs City Hall while mourning what was to come, many mentioning that she was planning to announce her run for Congress.

“She lived her entire life being more than one person,” Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins said. “She lived for us, and every day, she got up and she fought to make our planet better, and the places we call home more equitable for everyone who lives in them, and to lift every single person, whether she knew them or didn’t know them, up.”

Metayer made history in Coral Springs as the first Haitian American and Black woman elected to the city’s commission and pursued causes ranging from environmental resilience to accessibility.

“You felt her heart and her spirit every time you interacted with her,” Florida House Rep. Christine Hunschofsky said at the April 3 vigil. “Nancy was a beautiful soul who we will all desperately miss, and this community that she built, it is our responsibility to carry on the legacy of the things that were most important to her.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2026 at 4:08 PM with the headline "911 calls reveal family begging officers to break down door of vice mayor’s home."