The disappearance of 18-year-old Zebb Wayne Quinn on January 2, 2000, from Asheville, North Carolina, unfolded after he finished his shift at a local Walmart. He and a coworker, Robert Jason Owens, planned to look at a car for sale. The two were seen on surveillance footage at a nearby convenience store purchasing sodas shortly after leaving work. According to Owens, the last person known to have seen Quinn, Zebb received a page and became frantic.
After making a call from a payphone, Quinn reportedly told Owens he had to leave, accidentally rear-ending Owens' truck in his haste before driving off. This was the last time anyone reported seeing Zebb Quinn.
In the days that followed, a series of strange events deepened the mystery of Quinn's disappearance. Two days after he was last seen, a person claiming to be Zebb called his workplace to say he would be out sick, but the coworker who took the call did not recognize the voice. The call was later traced to the workplace of Robert Jason Owens. About two weeks after he vanished, Quinn's Mazda Protégé was discovered in a restaurant parking lot. The car presented a bizarre scene: a live puppy was inside, a hotel key card was found, and a pair of lips with an exclamation point had been drawn in lipstick on the back window. His mother believes the car was left in a location where she was meant to find it.
For years, the case remained cold, a haunting mystery for the Asheville community and Quinn's family. A significant development came in 2015 when Robert Jason Owens was arrested and later convicted for the murders of a local couple and their unborn child. This event prompted investigators to re-examine Owens's potential involvement in Quinn's disappearance. In 2017, Owens was indicted for the first-degree murder of Zebb Quinn. The case took another turn in July 2022, when Owens pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of accessory after-the-fact to first-degree murder. As part of his plea, Owens claimed that his now-deceased uncle, Walter 'Gene' Owens, was hired to kill Quinn over a romantic entanglement and that he had helped his uncle dispose of the body. Although this plea legally established that Quinn was murdered, his body has not been recovered, and the full truth of what happened that January night remains a subject of speculation and heartbreak for those who knew him.Last Seen: Jan 2, 2000
