Criminology - The Disappearance of Zebb Quinn

Episode Date: September 20, 2020

In January 2000, 18-year-old Zebb Quinn disappeared from Asheville, North Carolina, and has not been seen since. Police developed a main Person of interest in connection with the case. It turns out, that fifteen years later, that same person of interest in Zebb's disappearance pleaded guilty to the murders of a married couple and their unborn child. Join Mike and Morf as we try to unravel the mystery of what happened to Zebb Quinn?  You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories.

Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who-done it. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 127 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you doing? I am doing good, all things considered. I'm sort of bedridden for this recording due to a back injury of some sort, either kidney stone or muscle pool but I'm fighting through. How about you? Hey, sometimes you got to play injured, man. That's just all there is to it. Yeah, it's like every week there's something new, some kind of new challenge. So, well, like we keep saying, man, that's that's 2020 for you. Yeah, definitely.

You just can't catch a break. We had a couple of new Patreon supporters. So let's give shout out to Renee Oliver, who jumped out at our highest level and Catherine Watson. We appreciate that very much. A little light on this. the on the Patreon support this week. And I get it, man, times are tough. You know, they're tough for you and I as well. I think most people listening realize that they're not hearing a lot of, um, advertisements.

And there's a reason for that. They, they're just not there. So we appreciate all the support we can get. Yeah. If anyone's able to do it, it's, it's great. If they can't, we totally understand that. But anyone that would love. like to sign up for our Patreon can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology.

With that being said, more if I say we jump right into this episode, we're talking about the disappearance of Zeb Quinn. In January 2000, 18 year old Zeb Quinn disappeared from Asheville, North Carolina and has not been seen since. Police developed a main person of interest in connection with the case. And it turns out that, 15 years later, that same person of interest in Zeb's disappearance pleaded guilty to the murders of a married couple and their unborn child. All these years later, the question remains, what happened to Zeb Quinn? Zeb Wayne Quinn was born on May 12, 1981, and resided in Asheville, North Carolina. His parents, Jerry and Denise Quinn, divorced when he was two years old.

even though Jerry also lived in Asheville, he didn't see much of his son until Zeb was around 16 years old and started driving. After that, the father and son spent more time together and became closer. Zeb worked in the electronics department at Walmart on Hendersonville Road in Asheville. After Zeb graduated in 1999 from Roberson High School in Asheville, he continued living with his mother, Denise, in Arden, and working at the Walmart. He enrolled at Asheville Buncombe Technical School, or AB Tech for short. He took college prep classes, and he also talked about joining Walmart's management training

program. And right off the bat, morph, to me, that's interesting because I kind of got my professional life going at Walmart. I started out, you know, pushing carts, worked my way up. This is all while I was in college and became an assistant manager. I really thought at one point that I was going to kind of follow that path and be a Walmart manager. The thing that really kind of swayed me against it was the movement. They could basically with very short notice say, okay, we need you to go, you know, eight states

away. There'll be a truck that comes to your house. It packs you up and you're gone. And I was just starting out. I had just gotten married. it really wasn't something that was appealing to me, or I would have done it. Wow, it sounds like they really invest a lot of their employees there. Yeah, and for store managers at the time, I mean, we're talking early 1990s when I was there.

They were paying really good money. I'm sure they still do today, but I have no idea what it is. By all accounts, Zeb was kind, sweet-natured, responsible, and respectful of others, especially his mother, with whom he had a very good relationship. Denise has always said that Zeb was a bit of a mama's boy who would always call her if he was running late or had to change plans. Zeb and Denise both had pagers and he would send messages to her pager to keep her informed of his plans. On January 2, 2000, 18 year old Zeb was wrapping up his shift at Walmart when he ran into former co-worker, Robert Jason Owens. The two had occasionally played pool together. Zeb told Owens he was looking for a new car.

Owens told Zeb that he knew of a Mitsubishi eclipse for sale a few miles away. Owens offered to show him where it was after work. Zeb clocked out at 9.02 p.m. He got in his car and followed Owens to Eblins Sitko at the corner of Hendersonville and Longchols Roads, where both men went in and purchased sodas. afterward, Zeb followed Owens down Longshull's road. Along the way, he received a message on his pager and flashed his lights at Owens to pull over. Zeb asked Owens if he had a cell phone, but he didn't. So according to Owens, Zeb returned to his car and left to find a payphone. According to Owens, when Zeb returned about 10 minutes later at 9.30 p.m., Zeb accidentally bumped Owen's truck.

Zeb was upset and he apologized and offered to his. to pay for any damage. At that time, he received another page. Owen said Zeb became frantic and said he had to go and that he didn't have time to look at the vehicle for damage. He got into his car and sped off. And from there, he's never been seen again. When Zeb hadn't returned home from work, his mother, Denise, paged him several times around 10 p.m. But he never called back. Her first thought was that he was playing pool with friends, and I'd just forgotten to call her. Denise continued paging her son throughout the night, but she never heard from him. The following morning, in a panic, she started making phone calls to family members and good

friends of Zebs. Denise called the home of Misty Taylor, a girl Zeb had been spending time with, but Misty said she had no idea where he was. Zeb Quinn's aunt Ina told Denise that Misty had been with her and a few others until very late. That night, it's unknown who the other people were. Denise then called Walmart and spoke with Zeb's supervisor Patricia Andrew, who said she had not seen Zeb, but would let her know if she heard from him. Denise called others who knew Zeb, but had no luck. She eventually called the police and filed a missing person report. But Zeb was 18 years old, and there was little that law enforcement could do because he was an adult. They told her he probably just ran off, but no way.

Could Denise believe that? He didn't take any clothes. He didn't take his contact lens solution. And Jeb was also excited because he recently had purchased a new DVD player and a satellite TV system. On January 3rd, Robert Owens didn't show up for his job at Volvo Corporation. He phoned his supervisor and said he had been in a traffic accident, and that he was treated at the urgent care center on Hendersonville Road. The next day, January 4th, Patricia Andrick received the call from a man claiming to be Zeb,

saying that he wouldn't be able to work that afternoon. Patricia knew right away it wasn't Zeb. She kept asking the mal-call her questions, and the man on the other end answered them. When the conversation ended, Andrick dialed Star 69 on her telephone and discovered the call came from the local Volvo plant where Robert Jason Owens worked.

The police had begun to take Zeb's disappearance more seriously, and they were starting to poke around. They questioned Owens about the phone call to Walmart, and he claimed Zeb begged him to do it. He said that he didn't know that Zeb never made. at home. Medical records showed Robert Owens was treated for a head wound and a fractured rip at the urgent care center. Still, authority said his injuries were inconsistent with the minor accident that he claimed occurred with Zeb on January 2nd. A week went by and Zeb had not returned. There was no

sign of his car, a light blue 1990 Mazda protege. The first mention of his disappearance in the local newspapers was on Sunday, January 9, 2000. On January 16th, two weeks after he vanished, Zeb's car showed up at the Little Pigs Barbecue Restaurant Parking Lot on McDale Street. Restaurant workers said it hadn't been parked there at 5 p.m. the day before. But here's where the story gets really strange. Someone had drawn a large pair of lips between two exclamation points on the back window of the car, an orange pink lipstick.

A three-month-old black Labrador Retriever Mixed puppy was found alive in the car. The puppy didn't belong to Zeb. He had a bullmastiff named Sam at home. Other items found in the vehicle were drink bottles, a plastic motel room key with no identification, and a jacket that didn't belong to Zeb. The driver's seat had been pushed all the way forward, which suggested a shorter person had been driving the car. Whoever left the vehicle there wanted it to be found. Despite the strange clues in the car, when police examined it, they didn't find any clear sign of foul play.

But what did the drawing of the lips and the puppy mean? Zeb's family and investigators had no idea, but the lipstick suggested that maybe the artist was female. It was clear that investigators were baffled completely over Zeb Quinn's disappearance. On February 14th, a superior court judge issued a. search warrant, authorizing police officers to draw blood, hair, and saliva samples from Robert Owens. A few weeks after he went missing, a woman claiming to be a psychic walked into the Walmart Zab worked at and found a vest that apparently belonged to him. She touched the blue vest and had a vision. She claimed the startled employees that she saw Zab dead and buried.

This would be the only psychic claim in the case. About six weeks after Zep Van His sister Brandy, who was then a nurse's aide, was working in the Mission Street St. Joseph Hospital Pediatric Department when a family came in with a sick child. When they were discharged later that day, Brandy walked them out. While in the elevator, the mother saw a flyer with Zeb's face on it. The woman asked Brandy if they had found the missing boy yet. Brandy told her no, and that he was her brother. The woman looked at her husband and then turned to Brandy with tears in her eyes and said she needed to talk. talk to her. She claimed that on occasion she had visions or dreams that were like premonitions

and they had often come true. Brandy was definitely shocked by the woman on the elevator, but she was also intrigued. The woman said for the past five nights, she'd had very vivid dreams about Zeb. To her it seemed like Zeb was trying to tell her something. Each night she saw him buried face down in a shallow grave with rocks on top. The grave was on the far side of a stream bed and near a gray shack, an open field, and a construction site. Brandy said the woman described exactly what Zeb had on. His work closed.

He was holding something in his right hand that would tell us who did this to him. The woman said his right hand was exposed. She also said that it was an accident. Whoever did this to Zeb did not mean to do it. And there was a horseshoe each time somewhere in the dream. The woman said that a man killed Zeb, but that a woman knew about it. He had been hit on the back of his head near Highway 191. She also believed the murder weapon was a crowbar and said it was at the bottom of Lake Julian near Carolina Power and Lights smokestacks.

Brandy encouraged the woman to talk to police. And police did end up speaking with this woman. They talked to her for a number of hours. They even drove out to several locations looking for evidence or clues, but they found nothing. Several months later, investigators still had no idea what happened to Zeb. Denise learned from police that on the day or son disappeared that he received the messages she left on his pager. There was only one other number listed on his page.

that night. His aunt Ina's phone number. According to Ina, the police told her that one phone call was made to her apartment about three minutes after Zed received the page. That call came from Zeb's dad's apartment. Jerry Quinn denied making the call, and Citi had been working and claimed he had no idea who made that call. Authorities also told Ina that phone record showed several other mysterious phone calls were made from her apartment. Over the days, following Zeb's disappearance. She denied being home when the calls were made. She claimed when she had returned home on those days that her phone had been moved to a different part of the house.

One day a picture on her wall was laying in pieces on the floor. No one else had a key to her apartment and all of it really freaked her out. She called the detective and told him about everything. Ina also claimed that the police followed her for months after Zeb disappeared and questioned her repeatedly. According to her, she had nothing to do with her nephew's disappearance and even took and passed a polygraph test. And I don't know about you more, but I get it how someone would be very freaked out by these things. If true, you know, if everything she says is true, you come home, you're the only one in the house.

You know where everything is. You know when things are moved around, especially something like a telephone. Most people don't move their telephone on a regular basis. It pretty much sits in the same spot most of the time. So if you came home and the telephone was in a different part of the house multiple times, okay, yeah, I'm getting a little worried at that point. I mean, and this is coming on the heels of, you know, your nephew going missing.

Police are questioning you about it. There's a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, I think what's really weird is it wasn't just her that had that kind of experience. According to Zeb's dad, a call that came from his apartment he didn't make. So you have to wonder, is there what's going on here that there's these strange calls coming from multiple family members homes that, according to them, they didn't have. they didn't make. In October 2002, Robert Owens hit a mailbox and flipped his vehicle while fleeing from the police. According to the authorities, the officer who initiated the chase thought the driver might be under the influence of alcohol. The officer first encountered Owens in his 1984 Mazda on

Interstate 240 as she was returning to the West Precinct Police Station. Owens fled, taking Interstate 240 to Interstate 26 before exiting on Longshull's Road and turning left onto Ledbetter Road. Owens fired three shots at the police before wrecking his car. He suffered severe injuries and his car was severely damaged. Owens was listed in critical condition at the hospital, but he survived. He was arrested over the incident a few days later at the hospital. On the fourth anniversary of Zeb Quinn's disappearance, Police release surveillance video of Zeb and Robert Owens' interaction at the Sitco gas station on the night that Zeb disappeared.

On the tape, Zeb is seen entering the store about 10 seconds after Owens. They entered the store around 9.14 p.m. bought the soft drinks and then left the store. At 9.16 p.m., the video showed Owen's truck driving by the store's gas. pumps, followed by Zeb's Mazda protege. Police included this surveillance video in a videotaped reenactment of Zeb's disappearance, and they released that to the media in January of 2005, hoping it would spur new leads in the case. One of the stops on the video shoot was the Little Pigs parking lot, where Zeb's car was found.

Next, the vehicle was filmed parked and driving through the area encompassed. the Livingston Street Apartments, an anonymous witness told authorities they saw the car there with someone inside a few days after Zeb's disappearance. Police encourage this tipster to call them back, but it's unclear if the person ever did. In April 2007, a new search for Zeb took police using ground piercing radar on a property off Owens Code Road. This property belonged to Robert Owens. The search involved scientists from NecroSearch, a non-profit organization that locates hidden rays. Police didn't reveal what led them to search the property, but nothing came from it. By fall 2009, Zeb's case was cold, but investigators never stopped working on it.

On October 8th of that year, police retrieved hair, fingerprints, and saliva samples from Misty Taylor. investigators collected 50 headhairs, her fingerprints, and mouse swabs for possible future comparisons to other samples. For some reason, detectives had not collected samples from her before that. At the time of Zeb's disappearance, Misty Taylor had an abusive boyfriend named Wesley Smith. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Who found out about Zeb's interest in her. Zeb had told family and friends that he was in trouble because of his affection for Misty. In the weeks before his disappearance, his co-workers said he informed them that his life had been threatened. It's unclear whether authorities questioned Misty and Wesley after Zeb vanished. But authorities said in 2009, they did not consider Misty a suspect or person of interest in the disappearance. Misty told cold case detectives her relationship with Zeb was casual. He had told family members and friends he was concerned because, Wesley was abusive.

Police said phone and pager record showed Misty first called Zeb on December 20th, 1999. And the two contacted each other numerous times until Zeb's disappearance. Misty told detectives that she was at her parents' home. The night Zeb vanished. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodontes. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy.

And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from Heist to Whodonit. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. In 2012, Zeb's case was featured on the Investigation Discovery Show, disappeared. But little happened with the investigation between 2009 and 2014. In March, 2015, a horrific murder case of a couple named the Cod's took place in nearby Leicester that entirely changed the investigation into Zed Quinn's disappearance.

Christie's Shewin-Cod was born in September 3rd, 1976 in Madrid, Spain, the daughter of two military parents, William and Elizabeth Shellen. She was a Cajun food artist and owned her own catering company. called Classic Catering. She starred in Season 8 of Food Network Star. Being the daughter of military parents, Christy lived in various places throughout her childhood, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Her family has lived in the New Orleans area since the 1800s. Christy graduated from Louisiana State University in 2000 with a double major in German and performing arts, and she studied abroad in German. She later moved to Los Angeles and became a caterer and celebrity chef for a movie catering business. Those who knew Christy well have described her as a great human being with a contagious laugh who loved cooking for family and friends. In 2005, Christy Shone was a finalist on season 8 of Food Network star.

It was while in L.A. filming that Christy met Joseph J.T. Codd. Before long they were dating and the two married in September, 2000. 2014. J.T. was a grip on the television sets and had worked four seasons on the hit CBS show without a trace. After their wedding, J.T. and Christy wanted to settle down and start a family, away from L.A.'s hustle and bustle. They moved across the country to Leicester, North Carolina, settling in a small home at 87 Hookers Gap Road, just a few miles south of town. According to the Asheville Citizen Times, Christy wanted to own an aquaponics farm and was interested in starting a farm to table cafe, serving locally grown foods.

For several months, the happy couple enjoyed their new life in rural North Carolina, but then on Sunday, March 15, 2015, Christy's father, William Shone, called Christy's neighbor Cecilia Owens, a friend of the couple, and an aunt by marriage of Robert Jason Owens to check on J.T. and Christy. Cecilia had a spare key to the Cod's home. As soon as she entered, she knew something was wrong because there was a terrible smell inside the house. The couple's two dogs had defecated and urinated inside the home. And Christy kept an immaculate home. She never would have left her animals behind if she had intended to be away for an extended period. Cecilia walked through the home

to see if someone was hurt or sick, but no one was there. She phoned William back and told him what she found. He called the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department for a welfare check on his daughter and son-in-law. When deputies arrived at the Codd home, they found the couple's vehicle still there, and the two dogs inside the house. While there, they determined a breaking had occurred. Later that night, a person on Donna Road in the nearby town of Candler reported a man acting suspiciously. He was putting large trash bags in a garbage dumpster. Police were able to locate the items that had been disposed of,

and they confirmed they belong to Christy Codd. Based on the man's description, authorities found and questioned Robert Jason Owens on Monday, March 16, 2015. The Asheville Citizen Times reported that investigators executed search warrants for Owens property and found charred human remains in a wood stoke. Anthropology students from Western Carolina University aided in the dig. Searcher sifted through dirt in a grid pattern. They found fabric, leather materials, and unknown hard fragments that were buried under a layer of concrete on Owen's property.

But investigators wouldn't come out and say whether or not the items were significant. Investigators also found an unknown white powder substance and pieces of metal and concrete after digging up a concreted fish pond area. The search stemmed from a March 27th tip by an unknown relative of Owens who told authorities about a fish pond project that Owen started right after Zeb's disappearance in January 2000. But then he quickly stopped working on it. The individual described to authorities an area of about eight feet long and eight feet wide where Owens had poured concrete.

Investigators also found numerous plastic bags containing possibly pulverized lime or powdered mortar mix in another part of the property that was searched. Police charged Robert Jason Owens with first degree murder in the deaths of J.T. and Christy Cod. He was also charged with the murder of an unborn child because it turns out Christy was pregnant. After his arrest, Owens admitted hitting and killing the Cods with a pickup truck at the Cod's home. Owens claimed to police that he accidentally ran the Codds over while he was trying to help them pull their truck out of a ditch.

He claims he accidentally gunned the accelerator. Then after realizing what he had done, he backed over them. After the couple was dead, Owens took Christie's body into her bedroom and left her there. He then drove JT's body back to his home and dismembered it with an electric salt. before putting the remains into a bag. After he was done dismembering JT, Owens took the bag back to the cod home and went inside. It was at that point that he dragged Christy's body into the bathtub

and dismembered it, dumping the remains into a bag. Then Owens followed all this ghoulishness up by burning the bags of remains in a wood stove back on his property. From there, he buried the remains. The shocked investigators asked Owens why he did all of this, and he admitted that he did it all to cover up what he thought would be at the very least a case of manslaughter. Since he had a previous drunk driving arrest, he feared that he would receive a very harsh sentence. Additionally, Owens was charged with breaking and entering and larceny. He was accused of breaking into the cod home and stealing Christie's laptop,

jewelry and a Glock handgun with a combined value of over $1,500. Robert Jason Owens by this time had become a contractor and he had done some construction work for the CODs. According to Warrants, investigators discovered how J.T. Cod died from interviewing Owen's wife, Samantha. She said her husband had told her that he was driving the 2008 Dodge Ram that belonged to JT, when he struck and killed him at 87 Hooker's Gap wrote. The warrants also revealed that phone calls and texts from cell phones belonged to the couple

stopped on March 11, 2015, save a text from Christie's phone on March 14th to her mother. But authorities stated the couple had died on March 12th, and they believe that Owens sent that text. Asheville Police Sergeant Dave Remick called Owen's arrest in the murders, a significant event in the Zed Quinn cold case. After Owen's arrest, authorities re-examined a break-in and larceny of more than $5,000 worth of power tools reported the previous summer by J.T. Codd. In August 2015, J.T. reported that more than $2,000 worth of power tools, including a chainsaw

and generator, were stolen from his home. The very next day, J.T. filed a separate incident report and told him. told investigators that another $3,000 in tools had also disappeared from his property. Police officers noted that a blunt object, similar to a hammer or a club, had been used during the break-in. They later closed the case because they just had no further leads. On April 6, 2015, a Buncombe County grand jury added four charges to the murder charges, already filed against that ones. two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of dismembering human remains.

The robbery indictment stated that Robert Jason Owens robbed the Codds by means of an assault consisting of having in possession and threatening the use of a dangerous weapon. To wit, a kitchen knife approximately 10 inches in length with a 6-inch blade and a 4-inch black handle and or a motor vehicle and or a firearm. The dismembering charges alleged Owens attempted to conceal evidence of the couple's deaths by knowingly and willfully dismembering or destroying human remains. At the hearing, prosecutors dropped the initial breaking and entering and larceny charge against Owens because it duplicated the new robbery indictments. While Owens was in police custody, a fire destroyed a double-wide mobile home on his property. authorities released transcripts of seven 911 calls placed a little bit after 2 a.m. on March 20th, 2015, alerting authorities to the fire. The callers mistakenly thought more than one structure was burning, but it turned out to just be the mobile home, which sat about 50 yards from Owen's residence.

Police did not release the audio version of the calls because voices on the tapes, even with redacted, names might have been identifiable and could have endangered the callers. Sheriff Van Duncan declined to comment to the media whether the wood stove was inside the mobile home that burned. In August 2015, Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams announced he would seek the death penalty in the Cod murders. By October of that year, investigators in the Cod murdered investigation had still not publicly ID the human remains found in Owens' wood stove.

Furthermore, Owen's arrest hadn't yielded any visible breakthroughs in Zeb Quinn's disappearance. According to the Asheville's Citizen Times, police named Owens and at least two others as persons of interest in Zeb's case, but it's unclear who the other two people are. Another search in the Zeb Quinn disappearance took place at Bent Creek Experimental Forest and involved the Asheville Police Department and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. Police did not reveal if Owens gave up a tip to search the forest or if they got it from someone else. Authorities have remained tight-lipped on whether anything was found. In April 2017, Robert Jason Owens pleaded guilty to the Cod murders in order to avoid the debt penalty.

As part of the deal, prosecutors dismissed two counts of robbery with the dangerous. weapon. Owens was sentenced to a minimum in 59 and a half years to a maximum of 74 and a half years without the possibility of parole. Superior Court Judge Mark Powell approved the deal after two-hour hearing. Owens was then transferred to the Lanesboro Correction Institution in Polkton, North Carolina. On Monday, July 10, 2017, over 17 years after Zeb Quinn vanished without a trace, a grand jury indicted Robert Jason Owens for his murder. Prosecutor Todd William said he would not seek the death penalty in Zeb's death. Then in March of 2018, Robert Owen's attorneys Vicki Jane and Sean Devereaux, who represented him in the Cod murders, revealed in a court hearing that Owens told them what happened to Zeb Quinn.

According to his attorneys, Owen said that a member of his family murdered Zeb, dismembered him and then burned the remains. The family member was not named in court documents. Jane and Devereux provided prosecutors in law enforcement with Owen's detailed account of Zeb's death, which included that evidence of his killing might be found in the Bent Creek Experimental Forest. At the same hearing, the prosecutor contended that the defense attorneys had a conflict of interest so severe as to be non-waivable. in defending Owens. The conflict stemmed from Owens' plea deal in the Cod murders.

By taking the plea deal, Owens admitted guilt in the killings of J.T. and Christy Cod. Therefore, a conviction would be difficult to appeal or overturn in court. But as a last resort, Owens could challenge the plea by claiming he had ineffective assistance of counsel. According to the prosecutor Williams, he discovered the conflict in a letter. Owens had sent to his wife, Samantha, from the Madison County Jail after he pleaded guilty to the murders. In the letter, Owens told Samantha that he was forced to take the plea and that the plea was not based on the factual basis given by the prosecutor or my counsel.

He continued to write that he intended to challenge his prior plea. That was the conflict, according to Williams. But Jane and Devereaux and the judge disagreed. Judge Gavinus went over the plea deal again with Owens to make sure he was satisfied with his lawyers, and Owen said he was, and felt that they were effective in representing him in the Cod's murders. As of this errand, Robert Jason Owens is still awaiting trial for Zeb's murder, as no trial date has been set. Since Zeb Quinn's disappearance, there have been many theories as to what happened to him. Some believe Owens killed him.

Others believe that Zeb's aunt Ina and Misty Taylor murdered him. And yet other people think that Wesley Smith killed Zeb in a jealous rage over his affection for Misty and that Misty helped cover it up. Misty is only five foot three, which is about the perfect height for whoever had driven Zeb's car to the Little Pig's restaurant two weeks after he vanished. After Zeb's disappearance, his mother Denise married a man named Costa, a local restaurateur who knew Zeb and had a close relationship with him. Zeb would often stop by Costa's restaurant for chicken strips.

Zeb also loved driving Costa's Chevy Camara. In 2012, Asheville Police Sergeant Chuck Sams did an interview with the Asheville Citizen Times in which he said he had adopted the three-month-old puppy found in Zeb's car and he named her Katie. Sam's was a patrol officer at the time. He said it was difficult to tell how long the puppy had been in the car, but he knew it had been a while because she was covered with feces. The puppy was taken to an animal shelter and was there for several weeks. A co-worker of Sam's asked if he was interested in adopting her and Sam's didn't hesitate.

Sam's believed that Katie might have held the key to solving Zeb's disappearance, which became one of the region's most infamous missing persons cases. Unfortunately, Katie passed away sometime after the interview. Cost and Denise still reside in Asheville, as does Zeb's sister Brandy, who has four daughters and one son. According to Brandy, her youngest daughter is the spitting image of Zeb, a constant and happy reminder of him. Sadly, Zeb's father, Jerry Quinn, passed away on Christmas Day 2013 without ever finding out what happened to his son. He was 58 years old. So morph, kind of a different case for us, a combination unsolved with, you know, a guy who was

convicted of murdering a couple, and then they turn around and charge him with the previously unsolved case. The problem is we still don't have the ultimate. finality in the case just because he hasn't gone to trial yet. But, I mean, I take something from the fact that they have enough evidence or they believe they have enough evidence to charge him with Zeb's murder. I mean, there's no doubt that Robert Jason Owens was a bad guy. He murdered a young couple. It turned out that the wife was pregnant. Now, I don't know whether or not he knew. He knew that, it's possible because he had done work, right, or had done something with JT or for JT.

There's no way to know for sure whether or not he absolutely knew she was pregnant. But man, if he did, that makes it all that much worse. Yeah, the heinous brutality of what he did, not once, but he did it twice. he first dismembered JT, and then he went back after he had done that. And he managed to do it a second time to Christie just shows that he was pretty ruthless and was desperately trying to cover his tracks and make all the evidence disappear. I don't know about you, man, but I always feel like it takes a certain type of person. I mean, to commit murder, yes, I get that.

but then to systematically dismember a body. I just feel like that takes, you know, a certain type of person. Not everyone would be able to do that, even if they felt as though that was their only option to cover their tracks. Does that make sense? Yeah,

I think it shows someone that's especially cold and without remorse to be able to go to those extremes and to that. level of brutality. Just, I think we all know that spur of the moment, things can happen. Somebody gets in a fight. They do something. They realize they've made a mistake. They've hurt someone.

But to go that extra mod to say, I'm going to cover this up and I'm going to chop someone up, throw them into bags and burn them. That's just, that's a whole other level of evil. Yeah, I absolutely agree. So if he's capable of this with this couple. the way that he did, then what was he capable of in Zeb's case? Where might Zeb be? Where could his body have wound up? Well, I think it, you know, it really leads people in the direction of probably believing that, yeah, he's responsible for Zeb's disappearance and murder. He has it in him.

And I think a lot of people will make the connection or make the assumption that most likely Zeb was dismembered, discarded, burned, maybe in a similar fashion as the CODs. Now, we won't know that, I don't think, and, you know, obviously until all the facts come out. And that won't happen until the trial. Yeah, I think we'll have to take close attention to the trial when it happens and see what details come out. Thanks, Gazette to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute. Go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends about the podcast. That word of mouth goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with a handle at Criminology Pod.

You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion on fans. All right. Morph, that is it for the case of Zeb Quinn. Like you said, I think it's one to keep an eye on, right?

Because there will be more facts that come out. Hopefully there will be an actual resolution to his case. But you and I will be back with everyone next Saturday night with an all new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and more. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.