Miya Marcano.
A medical examiner has positively identified a dead body as missing Florida woman Miya Marcano, 19. For most, this new development is an obvious confirmation of their worst fears, but it is also a formal step in definitively figuring out what happened to Marcano.
Dr. Joshua Stephany, chief medical examiner of Orange and Osceola counties, did not reveal cause and manner of death, however. He instead deferred to law enforcement to reveal those details.
“A positive identification of a female whose body was recovered in a wooded area on October 2, 2021 has been identified as Miya Marcano,” he said in a statement obtained by Law&Crime. “This case is currently under active law enforcement investigation and any further requests for information, including cause and manner of death, will be deferred to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.”
Deputies said they have yet to determine cause and manner of death.
“Our detectives have been in communication with the Medical Examiner’s Office and cause and manner of death have not yet been determined in this case,” they said in a statement.
Marcano went missing Sept. 24. She was last seen at 5 p.m. at the Arden Villas Apartments, where she was both a tenant and employee, said Orange County Sheriff John Mina. Investigators suspect her coworker, now-dead maintenance man Armando Manuel Caballero, was responsible. He expressed his romantic interest toward Marcano, but she turned him down multiple times, Mina has said. Caballero allegedly used a master key fob to enter her apartment at 4:30 p.m., just 30 minutes before she was last seen alive. 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 seemed to have hung himself inside a garage used for paint storage.
The search for Marcano reached a tragic end on Saturday, with Mina saying authorities found a body they believed to be her. Authorities found a purse with her identification near the body. She was in a wooded area around the Tymber Skan apartment complex. Caballero’s cellphone records showed him to be there on Sept. 24, between 8 and 9 p.m., according to the sheriff. He was there for about 20 minutes, and records did not show him returning there before he died by suicide, Mina said. Caballero had previously lived at the complex, the sheriff said.
Mina said authorities had no other suspects.
“We are not looking for any other people,” he told reporters. “We believe pretty conclusively that Armando Caballero is responsible for this crime. And there is not any other person or persons that we are looking for in this case.”
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
Update – 8:44 p.m: We added a statement from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
[Images via Orange County Sheriff’s Office]
