A medical examiner finished performing the autopsy on a slain Florida woman, but the results have left many questions unanswered.
Miya Marcano, 19, was so decomposed that determining the cause of death was interfered with, according to results published Monday in local media outlets. Dr. Joshua D. Stephany of the District Nine Office of the Medical Examiner in Orlando determined that someone did indeed kill Marcano, but he could not settle on how it happened.
“In consideration of the circumstances surrounding the death, and after examination of the body and toxicology analysis, it is my opinion that the death of Miya Marcano, a 19-year-old black female found nearly completely skeletonized and in advanced putrefactive decomposition, is the result of homicide by undetermined means,” he wrote (h/t WPLG).
The doctor did not name the suspect, but police previously said Marcano’s co-worker Armando Manuel Caballero, 27, was her abductor and killer.
The 19-year-old went missing on Sept. 24 from the Arden Villas Apartments, where she both lived and worked. Caballero, a maintenance man, pursued her romantically and wouldn’t take no for an answer, Orange County Sheriff John Mina has said. In this account, Caballero used a master key fob to enter her apartment that Sept. 24 at 4:30 p.m., a half-hour before Marcano got off of work.
Investigators obtained an arrest warrant for burglary against Caballero, but maintenance workers at the Sabal Club Apartments in neighboring Seminole County found him dead on Sept. 27 in an apparent suicide. He hanged himself inside a garage used for paint storage.
Marcano was found dead mere days later on Oct. 2 near the Tymber Skan apartments, and according to Stephany, her body was “nearly completely skeletonized.” This interfered with analysis. For example, there was black duct tape around Marcano’s neck, but decomposition and exposure to elements made it so that the examiner could not tell when it was placed.
“It is possible the duct tape could have originally covered her nose and/or mouth,” Stephany wrote.
There was also black duct tape binding Marcano’s wrists behind her back, and also binding her ankles together, he wrote.
“No identifiable evidence of trauma,” he wrote in his overview of findings.
There were no internal organs left and “very little residual soft tissue” remaining to check for injury, Stephany wrote. He spotted no trauma in the remaining soft tissue.
[Images via Orange County Sheriff’s Office]
