The murder of Zebb Quinn
Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina · 2000
Overview
Zebb Quinn, 18, vanished on January 2, 2000, after clocking out of his shift at a Walmart in Asheville, North Carolina. He had planned to look at a car with a co-worker, Robert Jason Owens, and a surveillance camera recorded the two at a convenience store at about nine. Owens said Quinn left after receiving a page. Two days later a man phoned Walmart claiming to be Quinn; the call was traced to Owens's workplace, and Owens admitted making it. Quinn's car turned up two weeks later with a live puppy inside and lipstick lips on the rear window. His body has never been found. Owens was a suspect for fifteen years. After his March 2015 arrest for the killing of Cristie and J.T. Codd, he told his lawyers and detectives that a family member, his uncle, had killed Quinn; searches found no remains. A grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder in July 2017. On July 25, 2022, he pleaded guilty not to murder but to accessory after the fact of first-degree murder, and was sentenced to 150 to 189 months, to run at the same time as his sentence in the Codd case. Prosecutors said they were skeptical that he was not the killer. The district attorney said the plea legally establishes that Quinn was murdered.
How it was solved
There was no forensic breakthrough and no trial. The case moved because of what Owens said after a different arrest. For fifteen years he was the main suspect: the last person seen with Quinn, the man who admitted placing a call to Walmart pretending to be him, and the occupant of a Leicester property searched in 2007. No one was charged. In March 2015 Owens was arrested for the killing of Cristie Schoen Codd and J.T. Codd, who lived about a mile away. An Asheville police detective obtained a search warrant for his land in the Quinn case on March 31, after a person familiar with Owens said he had dug a pit, poured concrete over it and claimed he was building a fish pond. Investigators found fabric, leather and what the warrant called unknown hard fragments, and as of 2020 had not said what they were. According to his defense lawyers, Owens told them, and in May 2015 told Asheville police and sheriff's deputies, that a family member, his uncle, killed Quinn in Bent Creek and burned the body. Detectives and the State Bureau of Investigation searched the site. The district attorney later said searches there and at Owens Cove Road found no human remains and no evidence corroborating Owens's statements. After Owens pleaded guilty in the Codd case in April 2017, a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder on July 10, 2017. On July 25, 2022, he pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact of first-degree murder, and the murder charge was dropped. Judge Jacqueline Grant sentenced him to 150 to 189 months. District Attorney Todd Williams said the plea was supported by direct evidence gathered in the weeks after Quinn disappeared and legally establishes that Quinn was murdered. A defense lawyer said accessory was exactly what Owens was guilty of. Prosecutors said they were skeptical that he was not the killer. The uncle the defense blamed died in 2017.
Sources
- Robert Jason Owens indicted in Zebb Quinn homicide (July 11, 2017)
“A Buncombe County grand jury returned the indictment Monday. It charges Owens, in prison for a double murder, with first-degree murder for the death of Zebb Wayne Quinn on Jan. 2, 2000.”
- Timeline: From Zebb Quinn disappearance to Robert Jason Owens charged (July 11, 2017)
“Zebb Quinn, 18, vanished shortly after his shift ended at the Hendersonville Road Walmart in Asheville. A videotape from a nearby convenience store recorded Quinn and Robert Jason Owens as they purchased soft drinks.”
- Ownes charged with killing Zebb Quinn (July 10, 2017)
“In 2007, there was a possible break when search warrants were executed on a piece of property in Leicester. It was where Owens lived.”
- 20 years after the disappearance of Zebb Quinn, still very few answers (January 2, 2020)
“The co-worker who took the phone call knew Quinn's voice and told police it wasn't Quinn on the phone. Authorities traced the call to the Volvo plant where Owens worked.”
- Warrant details Zebb Quinn-related search of Leicester property (June 15, 2015)
“Owens' injuries were not consistent with the minor accident he claims occurred with Quinn the night before”
- Leicester man charged with two counts of murder (March 17, 2015)
“A man who was suspected in the disappearance of Zebb Quinn — one of the region's most baffling cold cases — was charged Tuesday with murder in the deaths of a Leicester couple with Hollywood connections.”
- New plea date in murder case of teen Zebb Quinn who vanished from Asheville in 2000 (July 11, 2022)
“Owens has told police that a family member killed Quinn then dismembered and burned his remains, according to defense court filings.”
- Zebb Quinn case: Man pleads to lesser charge in Asheville cold case (July 25, 2022)
“Prosecutors, while agreeing to the plea, were skeptical Owens had not been the murderer.”
- Plea deal confirms NC 18-year-old who disappeared in 2000 was murdered (July 25, 2022)
“But Monday in court Owens pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. In 2017, he was indicted on charged of first-degree murder.”
- Zebb Quinn's body has not been found in 22 years since disappearance (July 25, 2022)
“Owens pleaded guilty on Monday to accessory after the fact to murder. In written statements released by the Buncombe County District Attorney, Owens says he saw a family member shoot and kill Quinn with a .22 rifle.”
- Owens pleads guilty to lesser charge in 2000 disappearance of Zebb Quinn (July 25, 2022)
“Nonetheless, today's plea is supported by non-circumstantial direct evidence obtained by investigators going back to the weeks following Zebb Quinn's disappearance and for the first time legally establishes that Zebb Quinn was murdered.”