New Orleans man dismembers girlfriend, kills self

Something is terribly wrong with this country when a dispute over rent ends in this.

After Hurricane Katrina, Zackery Bowen and his girlfriend Adriane Hall appeared in news stories as examples of young people who had pressed on in the battered city despite evacuation orders and a lack of power and water.

Their story came to a disturbing end this week: Bowen leapt to his death from a hotel, leaving a note that led police to a French Quarter apartment where they found a woman's charred head on the stove, limbs in the oven and torso in the refrigerator.

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In [a] note, Bowen wrote: "I scared myself not by the action of calmly strangling the woman I've loved for one and a half years .... but by my entire lack of remorse," according to The Times-Picayune newspaper, which said it had obtained a copy of the note.

Bowen wrote that he had $1,500 in cash and spent it lavishly before killing himself, the newspaper reported: "So that's what I did: good food, good drugs, good strippers, good friends and any loose ends I may have had."

A woman who identified herself as Priestess Miriam Chamani in the Voodoo Spiritual Temple and Cultural Center below the apartment said the couple had recently moved in.

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The apartment's owner, Leo Watermeier, said he last saw Hall on October 5, four days after the couple put down a deposit on the one-bedroom, $750-a month apartment. [!!!] Later that day, Watermeier said, Bowen called him, angrily saying the woman was kicking him out.

Watermeier said Hall told him she had caught the boyfriend cheating.

The motive appeared to be A DISPUTE OVER RENT, police spokesman and chief of detectives Anthony Cannatella said. It indicated Bowen strangled the woman after an argument and cut up her body with a hand saw and knife, according to police.

"He took his life to compensate for the life he had taken," Cannatella said.

The note, Cannatella said, indicated the woman was killed early in the morning of October 5, in apparent conflict with the landlord's account of seeing them that day.

A story published by Newhouse News Service last year described the couple gathering tree limbs for cooking fires and trading alcohol -- easy to get because of their jobs as bartenders -- for clean water.

They also found a creative way to make sure police kept patrolling their home: a story in The New York Times included her flashing her breasts at officers to make sure they drove by.

"We've been able to see the stars for the first time," Hall told Newhouse after the storm last year. "Before, this was a 24-hour lit city. Now it's peaceful."

Holly Jacker, who tended bar with Bowen, said he was outgoing and a hit with the ladies.

"Women loved him," she said Wednesday night, over the din of music in at Buffa's, the dimly lit bar. "He was gorgeous, charming, a big fat flirt."

Detective Ronald Ruiz said police hoped to make a positive ID of the body, using DNA or dental records, sometime next week. He said police estimated the dismembered woman was in her mid to late-20s.

Joy Spaulding, who works at the nearby Nawlin's Flava cafe, said she occasionally saw Hall and Bowen. "To be honest, they seemed like a real nice couple. They were good-looking people, young people trying to do something with their lives," she said.

Now, they're just two more casualties of this debt-ridden, opportunistic, cannibalistic economy.

Mind you, 'rent' at its current outrageous levels is nothing more than another form of INTEREST - only instead of exploiting your need for money, they exploit your need for LAND.

IMHO - this goose is cooked.