Suspect In The Killing Of ‘Food Network’ Star Christie Codd And Her Husband, Was A Person Of Interest In The Previous Murder Case Of Zebb Quinn
The suspected remains of The Next Food Network Star contestant Christie Codd, her unborn child and husband J.T. Codd were discovered in Robert Jason Owens home in Asheville, North Carolina. Owens was arrested Friday in connection with the triple homicide, and police are now releasing information that he was a person of interest in a 2000 disappearance of a college student.
On January 2, 2000, college student Zebb Quinn went missing from Asheville, North Carolina. The 18 year-old’s disappearance is still a cold case, but detectives determined they were dealing with a homicide early on in their investigation. Quinn worked at the Hendersonville Road Walmart, and got off work around 9 p.m. Quinn was on his way to look at a new car with a co-worker and Owens when he said he got a page and needed to leave to make a phone call. According to NBC WYFF, Owens claimed that when Quinn returned he rear-ended his car, and said he was sorry, but he couldn’t go look at the car as they had planned, then he drove away separately.
On the morning of January 4, Owens called the Walmart that Quinn was employed at, and told them that he would not be attending work that day because he was ill. When Owens was initially questioned by police about Quinn’s disappearance he seemed cooperative, but after he made his initial statements to police he refused to cooperate with detectives.
Quinn’s car was found abandoned on January 16 with several items inside that didn’t belong to him. Some of the items found in his car were a black Labrador puppy, and a pair of lips with two exclamation points were drawn on the rear window.
In an article written by the Asheville Citizen Times, police Sergeant Mike Lamb spoke about Quinn’s disappearance on the 15th anniversary of his death, he was quoted as saying, “We still believe there are people in the area who know critical information but haven’t come forward.”
While police will continue to question Owens about the Quinn case, for now their focus remains on the triple homicide of Christie Codd and her family. The Inquisitr previously reported that Owens admitted to killing Codd’s husband by running him over with his truck. The cause of Christie and her unborn babies death remain unclear at this time.
Authorities zeroed in on Owens as a suspect when an anonymous caller reported seeing the man putting items into a dumpster very late at night on the evening the couple disappeared. According to the caller. Owens was dumping the items “in a very suspicious way.”
Owens has not yet fully confessed to the murders of the Codd family or the murder of Zebb Quinn, but hopefully for both families these cases can be solved, the bodies located and identified and Owens be adequately punished for these horrific crimes.
[Photo courtesy of USA Today/World Now/WKRG/Missing Persons Handout]
