On March 30, 1996, the ABC news-magazine show Turning Point aired a documentary titled "Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story", which included the filmed murder of an alleged poacher, executed while lying collapsed on the ground after having already been shot. The victim is not identified by the story's narrator, the journalist Meredith Vieira, nor is the identity of the person or persons who fired the fatal shots off-camera disclosed. The ABC script refers to the victim as a "trespasser".[22] The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg subsequently interviewed Chris Everson, the ABC cameraman who filmed the killing of the alleged poacher. Everson told Goldberg that it was not a Zambian game scout but Christopher Owens who fired the fatal shots. Goldberg reported in an article called "The Hunted" in The New Yorker in 2010 that the Zambian police detective in charge of the subsequent investigation, Biemba Musole, had concluded that Mark Owens, with the help of his scouts, placed the victim's body in a cargo net, attached it to his helicopter, and then dropped it into a nearby lagoon. Musole led an effort to identify the alleged poacher, but did not succeed. The former Zambian national police commissioner, Graphael Musamba, told Goldberg that the investigation had been stymied by the absence of a body: "The bush is the perfect place to commit murder ? The animals eat the evidence."[22]
To this day, Delia Owens denies the incident, explaining that she was not involved and there was never a case. However, her novel Where the Crawdads Sing, has aroused suspicion from those on her book tour about the parallels between the main character Kya and her case, and Delia's own alleged accusation. The Owenses have denied the accusations.[22][23]
No charges were brought against Owens or her ex-husband Mark, or stepson Christopher.
In June 2022, Zambian police officials told Jeffery Goldberg that they believe that Delia Owens should be interrogated as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felony crimes. Zambia's chief prosecutor Lillian Shawa-Siyuni told Goldberg that the investigation related to the killing of the alleged poacher, as well as other possible criminal activities in North Luangwa has been hampered by the lack of an extradition treaty between Zambia and the United States, and by ABC's apparent refusal to cooperate in the investigation, saying, "There is no statute of limitations on murder in Zambia...They are all wanted for questioning in this case, including Delia Owens."[22]