Rampart Street Murder House

Author: Jewls Krueger

On the 800 block of North Rampart Street, at the edge of the French Quarter, sits an old Creole building that housed a Voodoo temple on its ground floor and apartments above. For a short time after Hurricane Katrina, the couple who lived there became minor local celebrities, two holdouts who refused to evacuate and rode out the storm in the emptied-out Quarter. A little over a year later, the same address became the scene of one of the most disturbing crimes in the city's modern memory. In October 2006, Zackery Bowen killed his girlfriend, Addie Hall, in their apartment, then took his own life and left police a note explaining where to find her.

Addie Hall

Adriane "Addie" Hall was born on January 15, 1976. She came to New Orleans and settled into the bohemian rhythm of the French Quarter, where she worked as a bartender, including at a bar called the Spotted Cat. Friends remembered her as a poet, a dancer, and a sharp, independent woman who was a fixture of Quarter life. During Katrina, she and Bowen drew media attention for staying behind, and a widely circulated photograph showed the two of them on the front steps of their French Quarter home around the time of the storm. She was 30 years old when she died.

Zackery Bowen

Zackery Morgan Bowen was born on May 15, 1978, in Bakersfield, California, and later moved to New Orleans. He served in the U.S. Army in Kosovo and Iraq, and by 2006 he was working as a bartender in the Quarter, delivering groceries by bicycle on the side. He was 28, a father of two, and separated from his wife. According to reporting by journalist Ethan Brown, Bowen's mental health declined sharply after a close friend and fellow member of his military police company was killed in a mortar attack in Baghdad, and after an Iraqi boy he had befriended was also killed. He left the military with a general discharge, short of an honorable one, which cut into his benefits. Those who knew him described an outgoing, likable man, which made what happened harder to reconcile.

The Murder

By the fall of 2006, the relationship was unraveling. The couple had recently put down a deposit on the apartment above the Voodoo temple, but Hall believed Bowen was cheating and moved to have him removed from the lease. The landlord later said Hall seemed to be the one in charge, and that Bowen called him, upset, saying she was kicking him out. On October 5, 2006, Bowen strangled Hall inside the apartment. In a confession he wrote in her journal, he recorded the date and time and described the act in flat, unemotional terms. Over the days that followed he dismembered her body and left her remains in the apartment. To friends and coworkers who asked after her, he said she had left town.

The Investigation

On the night of October 17, 2006, Bowen walked into the Omni Royal Orleans hotel in the French Quarter, went up to the rooftop bar, and had a final drink. Sometime after the music stopped, he stepped off the roof and fell to his death. In his pocket, police found a note stating that his death was deliberate and that he was ending his life to atone for a death he had caused. The note directed officers to the couple's apartment on North Rampart Street, where they would find Hall's remains and a written confession.

Inside the apartment, investigators found the rooms cold and in disarray, with despairing messages spray-painted on the walls, including "I'm a total failure." Hall's remains were recovered from the kitchen. Because both people were dead, there was no arrest and no trial, and the case was closed as a murder-suicide. In the years since, the story has been the subject of a book and several television treatments, though people close to the couple have stressed that there was nothing supernatural about it. Hall, they have said, was a victim of domestic violence.

The Building Today

The building still stands on the 800 block of North Rampart Street, near Congo Square and Louis Armstrong Park at the edge of the French Quarter. The Voodoo Spiritual Temple that occupied the ground floor at the time, led by Priestess Miriam Chamani, later relocated after an electrical fire in 2016. The building now houses Bloody Mary's Haunted Museum and Voodoo Shop, which offers daily walk-in tours and after-hours events. The upstairs apartment where Hall died has been incorporated into the attraction, a decision that drew sharp criticism from friends and relatives of the couple, who consider turning the site into entertainment exploitative and painful given how recent the deaths are.

The apartment is private space inside a working business, and the surrounding blocks are a mix of homes and shops. Anyone who wants to see the location should view it from the public sidewalk and remember that this was a real crime with living survivors, including Bowen and Hall's now-grown children. The respectful approach is to observe from the street, avoid disturbing the current occupants or the temple community that remains part of this stretch of Rampart Street, and leave any grief connected to the address to the people who carry it.