Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans - Hardcover

ONE
SANTA MARIA

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 re? ection, 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 School’s homecoming king and queen—Marcos Cortez, Jay Robbins, Jimmy Draper, Zackery Bowen, Christina Villavicencio, MichelleWilcox, and April Sharp—posed 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 Cal ifornia town of nearly a hundred thousand residents located about seventy-?ve miles north of Santa Barbara, Zack was nervous and ? dgety. Sensing his anxiety, Zack’s 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 wasn’t underestimating her son—Zack was popular in school and had decent grades—but 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 af? nity 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.

Lori’s 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, ?owing 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 School’s football ?eld. A billboard for a Santa Maria hair salon called Hair Studio 1 was directly behind him, a ? tting backdrop for the long- haired, shaggy Zack. While the other candidates delivered serious speeches on school spirit—one candidate for homecoming king implored his fellow students to attend the school’s football practices to marvel at “the pride and dedication that people have when they’re out there”—Zack 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 Zack’s joke. Lori enthusiastically shouted “Go, Zack!” from the stands, but it was clear from the embarrassed look on Zack’s face that he knew the odd little gag wasn’t 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, espe cially the sopho mores and freshmen—thank you; vote for me, MichelleWilcox!”), and the parents of the candidates joined them all on the football ?eld to wait for the big announcement. Then, the MC cheerily announced that Jay Robbins and April Sharp—who were dressed in more traditional, formal attire: a black tuxedo and a shiny black- and- white silk taffeta dress—were 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 con? rmed 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 didn’t 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 A’s in dif? cult 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 espe cially upset because Jack was not a strong parental ?gure; 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 Jack’s home in Washington.

Though Zack’s 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, Cal i fornia, and dreamed of traveling throughout the West Coast and Paci?c Northwest; she had spent her adolescence in Southern Cal i fornia attending Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull concerts and protesting the war in Vietnam. Jack had seemed interested in Lori’s ideas about everything from psychedelic rock to the war. “I think the reason I liked Jack was that he was one of the ?rst guys I dated who didn’t 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 ?rst child, Jed, came three years later. Zack arrived after another three years, on May 15, 1978, at

6:50 p.m. at the Greater Bakers?eld Memorial Hospital in Bakers? eld, Cal i fornia.

When Zack was just a few months old, Lori and Jack decided to ?nally pursue their dream of living on the road. The family bought a VW bus and hauled Zack and Jed through small Cal i fornia towns like Torrence where Lori and Jack had friends. One summer in the late 1970s, when a friend who lived in a small, idyllic rural Idaho town asked Lori and Jack to help him on a home he was renovating, the Bowens dropped everything. “Jack and I got in our VW and zoomed up to Idaho for the summer,” Lori remembers. “Itwas gorgeous.” While in Idaho,Jack,who had long harbored artistic ambitions, began contemplating trading the family’s itinerant lifestyle for a life in academia. “Jack wanted to be a speech and drama teacher,” Lori explains. “I was so impressed.” Jack then attended a small college in Chico, Cal i fornia, and received a BA in drama, but clashed with his professors in a teaching program soon afterward. Depressed and disappointed, Jack moved the family back to Bakers?eld, where he took a job at an oil company. “Jack hated it,” Lori explains, “he wanted to be back in the limelight.” Jack’s frustrations with his job began to affect his treatment of the family; Lori was often left to care for Jed and Zack alone. “When my mom came by our house she would be so...