Bowen Zackery - Shake the devil off: a true story of the murder that rocked New Orleans

Thanks to: my agent Ryan Fischer-Harbage at the Fischer-Harbage Agency; my editor, David Patterson; my wife, Kristen; my parents, Susan and Stanley Brown; my brother, Josh, and his wife, Claire; Lori Moffitt; Jed and Tonya Bowen; Lana Bowen; Capricho DeVellas; Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense; Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America; Michael G. Bracey; Katharina Friedrich; Billy Sothern and Nikki Page; Kevin Allman; John Boutt; Jeremy Ridgley; Peter Scharf; Mary Bosveld; Michael Tomasky; Aaron Gell; Justin Manask; Greg Watkins; Robert Melanie; Davey D.; Gino S.; Jarret Lofstead and everyone at Nolafugees.com; Seth Ferranti; Walter Johnson; Jeff Chang; Joshua Cousin; Rick Doblin; Ann del Llano; Clyde Smith; Todd Rauch; Dennis Monn; Amzie Adams; Jack Jones; David Sylvian and Richard Chadwick; Leo Watermeier; the Squirrel; Tom and all the folks at Octavia Books in New Orleans; Bob French at WWOZ; Sara Roahen; Thomas Neff; Ted Mack; Rob Van Meter; Eric Royer; Cynthia Salerno; Karen Gadbois; Joseph Corcoran; Grant Shaffer; Andy Salzer; Juan Carlos Castro; Mark Healy and Susan Kaplow-Healy; Robert Levine; Jon Berry, Aksel Schaufler, and Michael Mayer. Finally, huge thanks for the friendship and inspiration from the two incred ible friends I lost far too soon, Joshua Shome and Dave Disco D Shayman.

ETHAN BROWN has written for New York magazine, The New York Observer, Wired, Vibe, The Independent, GQ, Rolling Stone, Details, The Guardian, and The Village Voice, among other publications. He is the author of two previous books, Queens Reigns Supreme and Snitch. He lives with his wife in New Orleans.

COURTESY OF THE BOWEN FAMILY

He knew himself too well not to realize the meaning of what he was feeling; yet his self-knowledge, born of a habit of incessant reflection, did not enable him to escape the morass in which his feelings were bogged.

RICHARD WRIGHT, The Outsider, 1953

Early in the afternoon of Wednesday, November 1, 1995, the candidates for Santa Maria High Schools homecoming king and queenMarcos Cortez, Jay Robbins, Jimmy Draper, Zackery Bowen, Christina Villavicencio, Michelle Wilcox, and April Sharpposed for a school newspaper photo standing in a pumpkin patch adorned with jack-o-lanterns and thick corn husks. A long-haired, seventeen-year-old Zack stares glumly at the camera, his chin resting on top of his hand. For months Zack had been obsessed with being anointed homecoming king. As he posed for the photo on that early November day in Santa Maria, a medium-size California town of nearly a hundred thousand residents located about seventy-five miles north of Santa Barbara, Zack was nervous and fidgety. Sensing his anxiety, Zacks mom, Lori, had tried repeatedly to lower his expectations about homecoming. The other boys competing for home coming king, Lori calmly explained to Zack, had excellent grades and solid college plans. Lori wasnt underestimating her sonZack was popular in school and had decent gradesbut he had no postgraduation plans. With his long mane of blondish brown hair, his awkward demeanor (partly a result of physically towering over his classmates), his affinity for dark, grinding metal bands like Metallica and Tool, and after-school activities that centered mostly around bashing out beats on a hulking drum kit in his house, Zack was far from the homecoming king type.

Loris predictions about the homecoming results were, unsurprisingly, correct. On Friday, November 3, 1995, after being introduced by the MC as a senior who plans on making a career out of music, Zack, who was dressed strangely in black pants, a white dress shirt, and a long, flowing black cape, and was shifting nervously on his feet, stood side by side with the other candidates for king and queen under the bright lights of Santa Maria High Schools football field. A billboard for a Santa Maria hair salon called Hair Studio 1 was directly behind him, a fitting backdrop for the long-haired, shaggy Zack. While the other candidates delivered serious speeches on school spiritone candidate for homecoming king implored his fellow students to attend the schools football practices to marvel at the pride and dedication that people have when theyre out thereZack grabbed the microphone on his turn and suggested that Santa Maria High School institute a mandatory two-hour nap period. The students and parents packing the bleachers laughed halfheartedly at Zacks joke. Lori enthusiastically shouted Go, Zack! from the stands, but it was clear from the embarrassed look on Zacks face that he knew the odd little gag wasnt appropriate and, worse, would likely dash his chances for being elected homecoming king. A few moments later, the homecoming queen candidate beside Zack made a short, rushed speech (Thanks to all the people who helped me publicize all this week, especially the sophomores and freshmenthank you; vote for me, Michelle Wilcox!), and the parents of the candidates joined them all on the football field to wait for the big announcement. Then, the MC cheerily announced that Jay Robbins and April Sharpwho were dressed in more traditional, formal attire: a black tuxedo and a shiny black-and-white silk taffeta dresswere homecoming king and queen. With Lori standing by his side, Zack smiled wanly and clapped politely as his competitors were crowned.

Zack was just crushed by losing homecoming, Lori remembered later. It was a blow to his already shaky self-esteem and confirmed his outsider status at Santa Maria High School. Botched joke about mandatory nap time aside, Zack could always be counted on to make his fellow students laugh, but ultimately, it seemed, they didnt really understand or have much in common with him. Soon after homecoming night, Zack became distracted during his classes, sending his grades plummeting. Lori had been pleasantly surprised by how well Zack had done in school his freshman and sophomore years (earning As in difficult subjects like geometry), and she was devastated that Zack suddenly reversed his hard-won progress during his senior year. Worst of all, Zack began talking about dropping out of Santa Maria High School and moving in with his dad, Jack, in Washington state. Lori and Jack had gone through a bitter divorce in the early 1990s, and their two sons (Zack and his older brother by three years, Jed) lived with Lori and visited Jack only sporadically after the split. So Lori was surprised that Zack suddenly wanted to move in with his dad. She was especially upset because Jack was not a strong parental figure; he was a dad who behaved like one of the buddies around Zack and Jed. But Zack could not be dissuaded and in early 1996, the second half of his senior year, he dropped out of high school, packed up his room, and headed to Jacks home in Washington.

Though Zacks sudden departure from Santa Maria was dramatic, it was in keeping with the gypsy spirit of his family. Lori and Jack had married when she was only twenty-one. They had seemed like kindred spirits during their brief courtship; he worked as a bellhop in Redondo Beach, California, and dreamed of traveling throughout the West Coast and Pacific Northwest; she had spent her adolescence in Southern California attending Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull concerts and protesting the war in Vietnam. Jack had seemed interested in Loris ideas about everything from psychedelic rock to the war. I think the reason I liked Jack was that he was one of the first guys I dated who didnt want sex, Lori remembered later. I matured really young and everybody I went with wanted sex. Jack, on the other hand, wanted to talk to me and get to know me. The couple was married in 1972 and their first child, Jed, came three years later. Zack arrived after another three years, on May 15, 1978, at 6:50 p.m. at the Greater Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield, California.