A Grisly New Orleans Tale

Zach Bowen was an Army veteran who had served in Kosovo and Iraq. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, he and his girlfriend, Addie Hall, decided not to leave. They rode out the storm in their French Quarter apartment above the Voodoo Spiritual Temple on North Rampart Street and became minor local celebrities for staying.

The months after Katrina were hard on the city and on the couple. On October 5, 2006, after weeks of fighting, Bowen strangled Hall in the apartment. He then spent days hiding what he had done, while carrying on with life in the Quarter as though nothing had changed.

On October 17, Bowen died after a fall from the Omni Royal Orleans hotel onto the roof of a neighboring parking garage in the French Quarter. He left a note in his pocket telling police where to look. At the apartment, officers found evidence of what had happened to Addie Hall, along with a written confession Bowen had filled into the pages of her own journal. Because he was dead, the case never went to court.