‘Public servant.’ Hundreds gather to honor slain Coral Springs vice mayor

Hundreds of mourners — not wearing black, but orange — looked to the sky and yelled, “Be like Nancy” on the Coral Springs City Hall lawn.

The message shared by many who knew Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen at the vigil the evening of Friday, April 3, was the same: she was not a politician, but a public servant.

“She was so much more than her title, and she was the kind of person who made sure me as a single mom of two had clothes,” Athena Guice told the Coral Springs News.

Those who attended the vigil focused on Metayer’s legacy — dropping Bowen from her last name — rather than on her husband, Stephen Bowen, currently jailed on charges of murder and tampering with evidence after Coral Springs police found the vice mayor shot dead in her home Wednesday.

Daphnee Sainvil, who met Metayer through the Broward League of Cities, said she was “bubbly” and always smiling. They became friends “instantaneously,” she said.

“Why such a good person, so much prospect, so much life, and so much to give to others, more than she does for herself,” said Sainvil, the public affairs manager for the City of Fort Lauderdale. “And that’s what always stuck with me. It’s like, ‘Nancy, you’re always giving, you know, who’s giving to you, who’s pouring into you? Know [that] we’re here to pour into you.’”

Metayer’s killing comes shortly before she was planning to announce her Congressional run.

“Nancy wanted to join us in Congress and be our colleague,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz said at the vigil. “And had Nancy taken that step, Nancy would have won that race.”

Metayer rubbed shoulders with some of South Florida’s most prominent elected officials. Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott talked about his time carpooling with Metayer, ever the staunch environmentalist looking to cut down on her carbon emissions, he said.

“As the guy who counts your votes, I have a duty to stay neutral,” Scott said. “But when she called me and told me what she was planning, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I told her I had no doubt that she would win, and how I looked forward to seeing my carpool buddy in Congress.”

Sanvil said when Metayer brought it up to her when they spoke recently in Tallahassee, she encouraged the vice mayor to go for it.

Metayer seemed to have one of the largest social networks in Broward County as a prominent member of the Haitian American community with a background in environmental science and a penchant for showing up for others, loved ones said.

Broward County Public School Board member Debra Hixon shared how Metayer supported her even in the middle of her own efforts to get elected to her first term as Coral Springs commissioner in 2020. When Metayer won her race, she became the first Black woman and Haitian American elected to the city’s commission.

“Nancy and I were both running for office in 2020,” Hixon said. “So even though Nancy had her own campaign, she came to every one of my volunteer things. She did everything to help me … That’s just Nancy. She wasn’t an elected official. She was a public servant.”

A friend described her as his confidant and anchor, sharing that they planned her city commission campaign together and his graduate school journey.

“She didn’t want to disappoint anyone, and she certainly never wanted her doubters to be right,” he said before the crowd. “And they never were. She was much more than a politician. She was a daughter, a sister, an aunt, an activist, a scientist, a woman of faith and so much more.”

“The stories about my friend are endless,” he said. “You see the tributes, the anecdotes and the testimonies of her character. She was the real deal, and she didn’t deserve the ending that she received.”

Hours before Stephen Bowen was accused of killing his wife, his parents recounted to police that he’d told them he’d had a panic attack at work and was planning to speak to Metayer about it. After he killed her, he told his uncle he “couldn’t take it anymore,” his relative told Coral Springs investigators, records show. But discussions of domestic violence were limited at the vigil.

Loved ones spoke for nearly an hour and a half as the crowd with candles passed flames from wick to wick. Toward the end of the vigil, by the time most of the flames had gone out, speakers led the crowd in chants and call-and-responses, with shouts of, “Be like Nancy,” crescendoing louder and louder.

Allison Beck contributed reporting to this story.