Murder of Zebb Quinn

Zebb Wayne Quinn (May 12, 1981 – c. January 2, 2000) was an American teenager who went missing in Asheville, North Carolina. Quinn was 18 years old and working at a local Walmart when he disappeared after finishing his shift. His car was discovered several days later in a restaurant parking lot under unusual circumstances; its headlights had been left on, a live puppy had been left inside, and a drawing of a pair of lips and an exclamation point had been scrawled in pink lipstick on the back window.

Seventeen years later, on July 10, 2017, Robert Jason Owens was indicted for the first-degree murder of Quinn. Owens worked with Quinn at Walmart, and was the last-known person to have seen Quinn alive. On July 25, 2022, over 22 years since Quinn's disappearance, Owens pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of accessory after-the-fact to first-degree murder. Owens claimed that his uncle had been hired to murder Quinn by the boyfriend of a woman whom Quinn had been romantically interested in, and that he had helped his uncle cover up the murder. Owens's uncle died in 2017, and there has not been an arrest of the alleged instigator. Owens's conviction legally establishes that Quinn was murdered despite the absence of his body.