Hundreds of people filled the front lawn of Coral Springs City Hall Friday night for a candlelight vigil to remember slain vice mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen.
She was found dead Wednesday morning when Coral Springs Police responded to a wellness check at her home. She had missed a city meeting that morning. Her body was found in a second story bathroom. Her husband, Stephen Bowen, has been charged with premeditated murder.
READ MORE: Coral Springs vice mayor's death investigated as domestic violence. Husband charged with murder
Attendees to the vigil wore orange — Metayer Bowen's favorite color. It signified her vibrance and her alma mater, Florida A&M University.
Metayer Bowen, a prominent Florida Democratic Party leader, was an environmental scientist and a champion for environmental justice and disaster relief across the state. She was the city's first Black and Haitian American female commissioner.
Emma Collum met Metayer Bowen in 2016 while volunteering in preparation for Hurricane Matthew.
" My husband and I went and thought we were going to just drop up some food. Five hours later, Nancy had us running to every church and every house and running up and down Broward [Blvd.]," she said.
It was a testament, she said, to Metayer Bowen's talent for rallying people.
" When you're on Team Nancy, you're never off team Nancy," Collum said.
Dozens of speakers, from personal friends to professional colleagues spoke about their memories of Metayer Bowen for more than an hour and a half.
Seated in the front row were members of Metayer Bowen's family flanked by onlookers holding candles. The service was also streamed online and was translated into Creole.
Metayer Bowen's family posted a touching tribute of her on Facebook.
"While many knew her as a leader and advocate, we knew her as a sister, a daughter, and a friend whose warmth and laughter filled every room," they wrote. "Her legacy will live on not only in the policies she helped shape but in the countless lives she touched."
Collum said she was not surprised by the large turnout.
“ I don't know that there is a single person that Nancy has not touched through her activism, through her mentorship, through her compassion, or through her faith. Nancy was a legend,” she said.
Metayer Bowen was elected in 2020 and reelected in 2024 and appointed to serve a second, one-year term as vice mayor last November.
Metayer Bowen's impact was felt far beyond the city limits of Coral Springs. Among those who shared their memories were members of Florida's congressional delegation, members of the Florida Legislature , dozens of Broward's elected officials and leadership from Miami Dade County.
" Every day [Nancy] got up and she fought to make our planet better and the places we call home more equitable for everyone who lives in them. And to lift every single person — whether she knew them or didn't know them — up," said City of Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, and Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, also spoke about Metayer Bowen's promising future as a leader.
Moskowitz said that Metayer Bowen was days away from announcing a congressional campaign to challenge U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.
“Nancy would have won that race.” Moskowitz said. “Debbie and I can’t get her there … We will go to the floor of the body she would have been a member of and we will talk about Nancy.”
She was also described as an inspiration to the younger generation.
Christel Louidor, who founded the nonprofit Gen Z Pou Ayiti, said Metayer Bowen drove her to her first ever advocate event in North Miami.
“ Nancy, showed me what it truly means to advocate. Not to speak, but to stand, and not to care, but to also act,” she said. “She called purpose out of me, and she taught me how to carry myself.”
“ I'm honest, I'm still in disbelief. Ever since she died I called her phone every day ... just hoping that I could hear her voice one time,” she said.
