53-Year-Old Charged With Miami Beach Murder From his 27th Birthday

MIAMI BEACH — George H.W. Bush was still president and the "King of New York" dominated the box office on a Friday afternoon in September 1990 when police say Dale Ainsley Leo Ewers knocked on an apartment door along Pine Tree Road and asked Mercedes Castaneda Perez for the phone number of her building manager.

Perez's childhood girlfriend from Cuba had moved in with the 34-year-old just two weeks before and was listening to music in the apartment around 1 p.m. when police say Ewers walked right through the door that Perez had left ajar and terrorized the two women — killing Perez and sexually assaulting the other woman — little more than a week after his 27th birthday.

Nothing would be the same for the next 27 years. But on Wednesday, according to police, Ewers' past finally caught up with him when he was extradited from Jamaica back to Miami Beach.

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He was charged on Thursday with first-degree murder, armed robbery, sexual battery and kidnapping for crimes he allegedly committed on that horrible afternoon so long ago.

"The subject, holding a firearm grabbed the second victim covering her mouth and pointing the firearm to her head," said Ernesto Rodriguez of the Miami Beach Police Department on Wednesday night. "The subject then pointed the firearm towards the other victim and discharged the weapon. This action resulted in the death of the victim."

While Perez lay dying on her back in a hallway, her friend, who only spoke Spanish, was sexually assaulted.

The ordeal lasted about 31 minutes, according to Miami Beach police, who logged the 9-1-1 call of "shots fired" at 1:31 p.m.

During that time, the suspect placed a tee shirt around the other woman's mouth and a dress around her head to prevent her from identifying him, according to police.

But the plan didn't work. The dress was made of a light fabric, which did not completely block the woman from seeing him.

The man took a silver ring off the woman's left hand and forced her into a bedroom, where he demanded money and searched a dresser.

"Defendant Evers repeatedly asked for money and she told him where her purse was," according to police, who said the woman was eventually forced into a closet until Ewers left the apartment a short time later.

"She could hear him walking around the room and again he returned to the closet," arrest documents said. "Defendant Ewers threatened her to remain quiet and not to come out. She waited in the closet until she heard what appeared to be a door closing."

When she emerged from the closet, she tried to help Perez, but the woman seemed heavy and unresponsive, according to police.

"When the uniformed officers arrived they met with the victim ... who was hysterical and had ... blood on her face outside of the apartment building," arrest documents said.

Photo by Miami-Dade Corrections