Let me tell you about the time my fiance as well as my future brother and sister in law went to New Orleans, got spooked, overate, walked off a ghost tour, and learned about murder. You know—typical vacation stuff.
It all started innocently enough: we booked a getaway to New Orleans, looking for a blend of culture, cocktails, and creepiness. And to be fair, the city delivered. We stayed in a lovely hotel a block from Bourbon Street—balcony, courtyard, the whole Instagrammable fantasy. It even smelled like jasmine and old secrets. We took a steamboat ride along the Mississippi, which was equal parts romantic and extremely windy. I recommend it, but bring a hat you don’t mind sacrificing to the river gods.
We ate like royalty who had just discovered spices. Muffulettas (mortadella sandwich)1 the size of our heads. Crawfish étouffée that made my sister in law emotional. And beignets? Listen, if powdered sugar isn’t coating your shirt like cocaine residue on Scarface by the end of the meal, you’re doing it wrong.
In the name of balancing decadence with something vaguely educational, we even made it down to the Chalmette Battlefield, site of the famous Battle of New Orleans. It was... peaceful. Hauntingly quiet. Rows of cannon replicas, vast green fields, and one oddly confident squirrel. There’s a deep, unsettling beauty to it—especially when you think about the number of people who died there, all while Andrew Jackson posed dramatically in a fog bank somewhere.
Speaking of which—Andrew Jackson is beloved in Louisiana. You see his face and his name on statues, streets, coffee mugs, possibly tattoos. And it’s weird, because outside of Louisiana, Jackson is... how do I put this... a historical landmine. Trail of Tears? Enslavement? Duels? There’s a lot to unpack. But in New Orleans? He's the rock star of 1815. The man who saved the city. Never mind all the moral ambiguity—he gets the full hero treatment down here. If Jackson were on Yelp, he'd have a solid five stars and a drink named after him.
Now. To the ghost tour.
We signed up for something called the Ghost Spooky Adults Only Walking Tour, which sounded promising. I had visions of haunted courtyards, whispers from beyond, and maybe a drunk ghost slapping a bourbon out of someone’s hand. What we got instead was a man in a sunglasses at night (red flag), a script that had been performed exactly one thousand too many times, and a suspicious obsession with finding out how were all doin’ tonight. You know the spiel. “C’mon now, that was pathetic. HOW WE ALL DOIN TONIGHT?”
The vibe was less “paranormal chills” and more “community theater on Halloween night.”
We gave it twenty-five minutes. We bailed somewhere between “that fire hydrant is allegedly haunted” and a bit about a ghost who only appears when you order a Sazerac with too much bitters. I wish I were kidding.
But—right before we slipped off into the night and toward a much more satisfying round of cocktails—our oversized safety pin laden guide did briefly mention something that stuck with me. “There’s the case of Addie Hall and Zach Bowen,” he said in a voice that was trying very hard to be Vincent Price. “Real murder. Real ghosts. Real tragic.”
He led us into a parking lot and told us the story. That's right. We were standing in the middle of a parking lot. Not the spookiest of places. But from the lot, you could see the Omni Orleans Hotel. More on that shortly….
Back at our own hotel (blessedly tour-free), I looked them up. And here’s where the story took a sharp left turn into actual horror.
Addie Hall was a poet and artist, known for her wild, magnetic energy. Zach Bowen was a charismatic bartender and Iraq War veteran. They met in the French Quarter and became famous for staying in the city during Hurricane Katrina. They fell in love—or at least, the kind of chaotic, trauma-fueled, alcohol-soaked version of it that New Orleans seems to specialize in. For a while, they were the darlings of the Quarter: dancing in the streets, serving cocktails by candlelight, being featured in human-interest stories on CNN.
But after the media moved on, things went dark. Zach struggled with PTSD. Addie became paranoid and afraid of him. She told friends she wanted to leave. And then, in October of 2006, she vanished.
Zach kept showing up to work, cool as ever, sunglasses on. Until he didn’t. He jumped from the rooftop of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel. In his pocket: a note.
The confession led police to their shared apartment on Rampart Street, where they discovered Addie’s dismembered body. Her remains were in the oven, the fridge, and—unforgettably—in a pot on the stove. Zach had written out a detailed account of the crime, along with a list of his own regrets. It was the stuff of nightmares. And it happened not centuries ago—but barely twenty years back.
That apartment is still standing. People say it’s haunted. Cold spots. Whispers. Shadowy figures. A woman’s voice. Most renters don’t stay long.
So no, the ghost tour didn’t deliver. But the trip? Oh, the trip delivered. History, beauty, oysters on the half shell, and a true crime tale that now lives rent-free in my head. Next time, I’ll skip the theatrics and head straight for the archives—or the bartender. They tend to know the real scary stories.
Just don’t ask them about that fire hydrant.
We didn't actually try one because Armenians have mortadella sandwiches on lock and trust me when I tell you we do it right.