Coral Springs vice mayor dead; husband charged with murder

Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was found dead at her home on Wednesday morning, and her husband, Stephen Bowen, has been charged with premeditated murder.

Officers found the vice mayor dead at her home in the 800 block of Northwest 127th Avenue at about 10 a.m. Wednesday while conducting an investigation into her “well-being,” the city said in a statement.

Bowen is being held in the Broward County main jail on charges of premeditated murder and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. At a first-appearance hearing in Broward County Court Thursday morning, a judge ordered him held without bond.

Chief Brad Mock said at a news conference that there were no other suspects as of Wednesday evening, and there is no threat to the public. He said he could not provide additional information and he did not take questions.

Metayer Bowen and her husband were married in 2022, according to their Broward County marriage license.

Bowen, 40, was listed as the chief operating officer of Men of St. Luke Inc., a nonprofit based in Hollywood, as of 2025, state business records show. The organization originally registered in 2009 under the name The Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge of Florida, St. Luke Lodge #530 and was described as a statewide Masonic organization. He has an active license as a certified radiologic technologist that was issued in 2014 by the Department of Health.

Several state politicians expressed shock about the vice mayor’s sudden death, which they referred to in written statements as a shooting death.

The police chief did not provide details about how Metayer Bowen died.

Metayer Bowen, 38, was first elected in 2020, won re-election in 2024 and last November was appointed by the commission to serve a second, one-year term as vice mayor, according to her bio on the city’s website. She was the first Black and Haitian-American woman to hold a seat on the city commission and an environmental scientist who formerly served on the Broward County Soil and Water Conservation District.

City Manager Catherine Givens said at the news conference the city will have a behavioral health program available to employees.

“What’s worse is the tremendous grief that her family must endure. If you knew Nancy, her family was everything,” Gibbons said. “… She wasn’t just a leader; she was the light in every room that she entered. She was a steady voice in difficult times, a compassionate soul who lifted others up and a friend to so many.”

Commissioner Joshua Simmons spoke on behalf of the commission, which he said is now “incomplete.”

“She had such a good heart. She truly cared about people, even when people were saying some of the most horrible things about her and us,” Simmons told reporters. “She still cared, rolled up her sleeves, went to every event that she could go to because she truly cared about people and making sure people had a relationship with their elected officials.”

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in 2024 named Metayer Bowen as its Caribbean vote director in Florida, the South Florida Sun Sentinel previously reported.

Rep. Dan Daley, D-Coral Springs, and Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, D-Parkland, attended the news conference, who were both close friends of Metayer Bowen.

Her family shared a statement on Metayer Bowen’s social media Wednesday evening.

“Throughout her years in public office, she led with integrity, compassion, and an unwavering sense of purpose,” the family’s statement said. “She believed in bringing people together, listening to those she served, and working tirelessly to create positive change in her community. To us, she was a source of strength, wisdom, and love — someone who always put others before herself.”

“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.”

Metayer Bowen’s younger brother, Donovan Joshua Leigh Metayer, died by suicide in their family home in December at age 26. He was a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland during the 2018 mass shooting and struggled with mental health issues afterward, according to a GoFundMe online fundraiser for funeral expenses.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat representing the Orlando area, in a statement shared on social media Wednesday said that Metayer Bowen’s family has “already experienced deep loss” with his suicide.

“Nancy and I worked side by side in the reproductive rights movement for years, and I’ve been honored to call her not just a colleague, but a dear friend,” Eskamani wrote. “She was brilliant, compassionate, and deeply committed to justice. I’m heartbroken by this loss, her future in politics and leadership was only just beginning, and our communities will feel that absence profoundly.”

Metayer Bowen also held the title of vice chair of Haitian Outreach for the Florida Democratic Party. In a statement Wednesday evening, Chair Nikki Fried called Metayer Bowen’s death “sudden and horrific.”

“Nancy was not simply our Vice Chair of Haitian Outreach. She was a scientist. An environmentalist,” Fried said in the statement. “A brilliant barrier-breaker who made history as the first Black and Haitian-American woman elected to the Coral Springs City Commission. A Vice Mayor who showed up every single day for the people she served. She loved her community deeply and believed, with every fiber of her being, that a better and more equitable future was possible for all of us.”

Metayer Bowen was a graduate of Florida A&M University and earned her master’s degree in health science from Johns Hopkins University.

In 2011, she was an intern in the White House during the Obama administration and an intern for then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in his Tallahassee office before becoming the program manager of two nonprofit foundations in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The Coral Springs Police Department Crimes Against Persons Unit asks anyone with information regarding this incident to call Detective Daniel Powers at 954-346-1223 or email dpowers@coralsprings.gov.

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