Miami-Dade Man Charged Five Years After Woman Found Stabbed, Wrapped In Blanket

A man is facing first-degree murder charges five years after a Northeast Miami-Dade woman was found stabbed to death inside her condominium, her body wrapped in a blanket. Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office detectives say 36-year-old Itiaba Ekong has now admitted he stabbed 45-year-old Lenoris Henry Marlowe, closing a case that had gone unsolved since February 2021.

The victim, identified by police in 2021 as a transgender woman, was found dead at the Carmel at the California Condominiums on NE 199th Street after family members grew worried when they could not reach her, according to CBS Miami. Deputies with what was then the Miami-Dade Police Department's Intracoastal District responded to the area of Northeast 199th Street and 10th Avenue on February 4, 2021, to conduct a welfare check, and found an unresponsive man wrapped in a blanket, per the seed facts of the case detailed by WPLG Local 10. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue medics pronounced Marlowe dead at the scene.

A Confession Years in the Making

Detectives have not confirmed a motive for the 2021 stabbing, even after Ekong's admission. What investigators have said is that MDSO detectives worked for over five years to uncover what happened and bring justice to the victim's friends and family, ultimately identifying Ekong as the subject in the case, the outlet's report notes.

Ekong now faces charges of first-degree felony murder and burglary with an assault and/or battery, in addition to a grand theft charge. Under Florida Statute 782.04(1)(a)(2), a first-degree felony murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of either life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, according to legal analysis from the Brancato Law Firm. Separately, committing burglary while executing an assault or battery is a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in state prison under Florida Statute 810.02(2)(a), per the Sammis Law Firm.

A Lengthy Criminal History

Court records show Ekong is already serving a life sentence in a separate case. His criminal history includes prior convictions for armed robbery, burglary, grand theft, simple battery, and trafficking in stolen property, according to the same account from the outlet that first reported the charges. Justia court dockets show Ekong filed an appeal with the Florida Third District Court of Appeal against the State of Florida in February 2023, while he was incarcerated for the armed robbery conviction — a filing that fell squarely in the years between Marlowe's 2021 death and this week's charges.

The agency now pursuing the case carries a different name than the one that responded to the original welfare check in 2021. Miami-Dade County's police department officially converted to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office in January 2025 under newly sworn Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, the county's first elected sheriff in nearly 60 years, which is why current releases reference MDSO rather than MDPD.

The Broader Cold Case Backlog

Marlowe's case is one of thousands still sitting in Miami-Dade's unsolved homicide files. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office Homicide Bureau Cold Case Squad manages an active backlog of roughly 2,000 unsolved homicides, a workload partly addressed through federal DNA resolution grants, according to agency records. That backlog reflects a wider pattern: an FBI data report cited by CBS News Miami found the county's overall homicide clearance rate was just 43% in 2020, below the national average of 52%, with investigators pointing to witness fear of retaliation as a major obstacle to closing cases.

Nationally, the numbers are even starker. The Murder Accountability Project's analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data through 2024 found more than 352,000 homicides across the country remain unsolved dating back to 1965, with cold cases like Marlowe's officially counted as cleared in the year an arrest finally happens, regardless of how long the case sat open. For Marlowe's family, that clearance came five years after a welfare check turned into a homicide investigation, and years after investigators first circulated surveillance video and a Crime Stoppers reward of up to $5,000 seeking a person of interest near the condominium complex.