Robert Jason Owens: The Codd Murders and Zebb Quinn Case

Robert Jason Owens is a North Carolina contractor serving an effective life sentence for two separate homicide cases in Buncombe County. In 2017 he pleaded guilty to killing Cristie Schoen Codd, a former Food Network Star contestant, along with her husband Joseph “J.T.” Codd and their unborn daughter at their Leicester home in March 2015. In 2022 he pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in the 2000 death of eighteen-year-old Zebb Quinn, a cold case that had gone unsolved for more than two decades.

The Codd Murders in Leicester

Cristie Schoen Codd was a 38-year-old chef who had competed on Season 8 of Food Network Star on “Team Alton,” specializing in Cajun cuisine. She ran a sustainable catering company called Tree Hugger Catering and had met her husband J.T., a Hollywood stage technician, while both worked on the television show Without a Trace. The couple married in September 2014 and moved from California to Leicester, a small community in Buncombe County, looking for a quiet place to raise a family.¹ Cristie was five months pregnant with a daughter they planned to name Skylar.

Owens was a local contractor who had done construction and odd jobs for the Codds. On or around March 12, 2015, he killed both of them at their home. He later told investigators that he had accidentally run over the couple with his pickup truck while they were helping him free it from a ditch in their driveway, then deliberately drove over them a second time because he “knew what he had done.”² Fearing prison because of a prior record, Owens dismembered the bodies with a reciprocating saw and burned the remains in a wood stove at a mobile home on his property.

To stage a robbery, he broke into the Codds’ home and took a laptop, a Glock handgun, and jewelry, later selling the items at pawn shops and a flea market. He also moved the couple’s cars.³ Relatives reported the Codds missing around March 15, after finding the house in an unusual state with the dogs still inside. A tip led investigators to a dumpster in Candler, where trash bags contained items belonging to Cristie Codd.⁴ A search of Owens’ property on March 16 uncovered human remains in the wood stove. His wife told police he had confessed to killing J.T. Codd.

Plea and Sentence

Owens was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, murder of an unborn child, breaking and entering, and dismembering human remains.³ On April 27, 2017, he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and two counts of dismembering human remains. In exchange, prosecutors withdrew the death penalty and dismissed two robbery charges. He was sentenced to a minimum of 59.5 years and a maximum of 74.5 years in prison without the possibility of parole.²

District Attorney Todd Williams said there were no surviving witnesses, Owens had held exclusive control of the crime scene for several days, and he had nearly finished cremating the remains, leaving prosecutors with limited forensic evidence about how the Codds actually died. Williams described the plea as “airtight closure” and said both families supported the deal.⁵ He called the killings “among the most disturbing” in Buncombe County history.¹

The Zebb Quinn Cold Case

On January 2, 2000, eighteen-year-old Zebb Wayne Quinn vanished after finishing a shift at a Walmart on Hendersonville Road in Asheville. He was last seen alive with Owens, then a friend. Surveillance footage from a convenience store on Long Shoals Road captured the two buying soft drinks that evening.⁶

Owens told police the two had been driving separately to look at a car for sale, that Quinn received a page, left to find a payphone, and returned “frantic,” then rear-ended Owens’ truck and sped off.⁷ Hours later, Owens showed up at a hospital with head injuries and a broken rib, claiming a separate crash near a Waffle House. That same day, someone called Quinn’s Walmart pretending to be Quinn and reporting in sick; the call was traced to the Volvo plant where Owens worked.⁴

Quinn’s Mazda Protege turned up two weeks later in a barbecue restaurant parking lot near the hospital where his mother, grandmother, and sister worked. Police identified Owens as a person of interest and obtained a warrant in February 2000 for hair, blood, and saliva samples, but he refused further cooperation and the case went cold.⁸⁹

Owens’ 2015 arrest reopened the investigation. Detectives searched his property on Owens Cove Road, digging beneath a concrete-filled fish pond he had built shortly after Quinn vanished; they recovered fabric, leather, and unidentified hard fragments.¹⁰ In May 2015 they also searched part of the Bent Creek Experimental Forest based on Owens’ statements. A grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder on July 10, 2017, weeks after his Codd sentencing.¹¹

Owens Blames His Uncle

Owens denied killing Quinn and named his uncle, Walter Eugene “Gene” Owens, as the actual killer. He said his uncle lured Quinn to Pisgah National Forest under the pretense that Quinn would meet a young woman named Misty Taylor, and that he watched his uncle shoot, dismember, and burn Quinn’s body in the Bent Creek area. Defense attorneys described Gene Owens as controlling and abusive.¹²

Owens’ story shifted. In a 2015 written statement he said his uncle hid a piece of Quinn’s skull under a rock; in a later interview he said he himself had returned and hidden the skull fragment. A multi-day search of the Bent Creek site by detectives and the State Bureau of Investigation turned up nothing, and DA Williams said investigators found inconsistencies in the account.¹³ Gene Owens died on July 8, 2017 at age 66, two days before his nephew was indicted, and could not be questioned.¹⁴ Owens reportedly passed a polygraph on his uncle’s involvement. Prosecutors remained skeptical, pointing to the similarity between the alleged dismemberment and burning of Quinn and the nearly identical method Owens used on the Codds fifteen years later.

The 2022 Plea

On July 25, 2022, Owens appeared before Judge Jacqueline Grant in Buncombe County Superior Court and pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. The original first-degree murder charge was dropped, and he was sentenced to 150 to 189 months, to run concurrently with his Codd sentence.⁶

Twenty-two years had passed since Quinn’s disappearance, no remains had ever been recovered, and physical evidence was thin. Williams said the plea “for the first time legally establishes that Zebb Quinn was murdered.”¹³ Quinn’s mother, Denise Vlahakis, and sister, Brandi Quinn, approved the deal in advance.¹⁵

Prior Criminal Record

Owens spent roughly 23 months in North Carolina state prison between 2002 and 2009. According to the Department of Public Safety, his convictions included habitual impaired driving, speeding to elude arrest, assault on an officer, resisting officers, reckless driving, and drunk and disorderly conduct. His first DWI charge was filed in October 2002, and he was released from his last prison term in July 2009.⁸ Owens cited fear of that record as his reason for destroying the Codds’ remains rather than calling police.

Where He Is Now

Owens is serving 59.5 to 74.5 years without the possibility of parole for the Codd murders, with the 150-to-189-month accessory sentence for Quinn running concurrently. No further legal developments have been reported. Zebb Quinn’s remains have never been found, and the full circumstances of his death on the night of January 2, 2000 remain unverified by physical evidence.¹⁶

1
CBS News. Man Admits Killing Ex-Food Network Contestant and Husband
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Citizen-Times. Owens Pleads Guilty in Codd Killings
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CNN. Food Network Star Murder
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Citizen-Times. Timeline of Zebb Quinn’s Disappearance
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WLOS. DA Todd Williams Releases Statement on Owens Sentencing
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WLOS. Robert Jason Owens Pleads Guilty in Zebb Quinn Case
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WLOS. 20 Years After the Disappearance of Zebb Quinn
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Citizen-Times. Leicester Man Charged With Two Counts of Murder
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NBC News. Suspect in Food Network Star Killing Was Person of Interest in 2000 Cold Case
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WYFF. Double Murder Suspect’s Property Searched in Missing Teen Case
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WLOS. Owens Indicted in Killing of Zebb Quinn
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Citizen-Times. What Happened to Zebb Quinn
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Citizen-Times. Zebb Quinn Case: Man Pleads to Lesser Charge
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Citizen-Times. Asheville Killer of Zebb Quinn Dead, Says Accused
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ABC11. Asheville Cold Case: Zebb Quinn
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Citizen-Times. What Happened to Zebb Quinn, What Happened to Robert Jason Owens