A 39-year-old man is facing four felony charges after Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office deputies found a decomposing body concealed under yoga mats in the backseat of a Kia K4 at the Northside Shopping Plaza, nearly three months before he was tracked down and arrested. Darrell Anderson was taken into custody on Monday, and investigators say he confessed once he was brought in for questioning.
According to WSVN, surveillance video captured Anderson driving the Kia K4 on May 25, exiting the vehicle at the Northside Shopping Plaza near Northwest 27th Avenue, and walking away without contacting authorities. The car sat in the lot for two more days before anyone realized what was inside.
The Kia belonged to the person whose body deputies would later discover, and the vehicle itself was allegedly stolen. Under Florida law, taking any motor vehicle automatically triggers a third-degree grand theft charge punishable by up to five years in prison, regardless of the car's value, per MGP&K.
Pawned Phone Led Investigators to a Suspect
The day after leaving the Kia behind, on May 26, Anderson allegedly pawned the victim's cellphone through an ecoATM kiosk, telling the machine's verification system the phone had been given to him by a friend. Falsely claiming ownership of pawned property to dodge an ecoATM or pawnbroker's identity checks is itself a felony in Florida, carrying up to 15 years in prison if the item is valued over $300, according to Hussein & Webber PL.
Those kiosks are built to make that kind of lie difficult to get away with. ecoATM machines use three built-in webcams to photograph users in real time and require both a thumbprint scan and a valid government-issued ID before any cash changes hands, with complete transaction logs and biometric data automatically routed to law enforcement databases, per Police1. That built-in paper trail is what ultimately let investigators connect Anderson to the phone.
Flies and a Foul Odor Led to the Discovery
On May 27, deputies responding to reports of flies and a foul odor found the decomposing remains hidden under yoga mats in the Kia's backseat. The scenario echoes a 2020 case elsewhere in Miami-Dade, in which Florida Highway Patrol troopers and Miami-Dade police discovered the body of an aspiring hip-hop artist in a car trunk after noticing the same telltale signs of buzzing flies and a foul smell, a case that resulted in second-degree murder and illegal transport of human remains charges for the suspect, per CBS News.
Anderson was not located and arrested until August 17, nearly three months after the body was found, the report notes. Investigators said he confessed after being questioned. Homicide charges have not been announced, and the exact cause of death has not been made public, leaving those questions open for now.
Four Felony Charges, Restored Sheriff's Office
Anderson now faces charges of failure to report a death with intent to conceal, grand theft of a vehicle, dealing in stolen property, and providing false verification in a pawn transaction. Concealing a corpse under Florida Statute 872.06 and dealing in stolen property under Florida Statute 812.019 are each second-degree felonies carrying up to 15 years in prison, according to the same statutory framework cited by Online Sunshine.
The agency that made the arrest, the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, only resumed operations under that name in January 2025, when elected Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz took office, restoring a constitutional sheriff's role to the county for the first time since 1966. Florida voters approved a 2018 statewide constitutional amendment requiring every county to elect an independent sheriff, ending decades in which the county had instead relied on an appointed Miami-Dade Police Department.
The Northside Shopping Plaza, at 7900 NW 27th Avenue, is a major commercial hub along the NW 79th Street corridor in Northwest Miami-Dade, home to community health clinics, social service agencies, and public transit connections. Florida's property crime rate stood at 17.7 per 1,000 residents as of 2025, below the national average of 19.6, though grand theft auto and pawn fraud convictions still carry mandatory felony records in the state, per George Law.
