A vigil will be held later this week for a Pennsylvania woman who police say was drugged and raped by two men in Miami Beach before she was found dead in a hotel.
Mourners will gather Friday to honor Christine Englehardt at an event at the Albion Hotel, 1650 James Avenue, at 5 p.m. Miami Beach city officials and local activists will be in attendance, and singer Maryel Epps will perform.
“We cannot allow her death to be in vain,” a news release announcing the vigil said. “We must show that this type of behavior will cease to happen in Miami Beach.”
New video appears to show the moments Miami Beach police officers arrest one of the suspects accused in the actions that may have led to Englehardt’s death.
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The video, obtained by NBC 6 on Wednesday, shows officers handcuffing 21-year-old Evoire Collier on March 20. Collier and Dorian Taylor, 24, have been charged with sexual battery as well as burglary with battery, theft and credit card fraud.
Englehardt, of Pennsylvania, was found dead last Thursday after officers responded to “reports of an unconscious female” at a South Beach hotel, according to a police report.
The men are accused of stealing the dead woman's credit cards to help fund their South Beach vacation, the report says. Online jail records did not indicate whether the two had an attorney who could speak for them.
Whether the two are charged with manslaughter or murder will depend on what caused her death, which a medical examiner has not yet released. Investigators are looking into whether Engelhardt died of a drug overdose, possibly a substance supplied by the men, who said they gave her a “green pill," according to the arrest report.
“To just do that and continue to stay in the area and also using her credit information and things like that, that's just sickening," said DeAsia Skillern, who was vacationing in the area at the time.
Skillern says she didn't know it at the time but says the two defendants photobombed her vacation pictures. She actually posted one well before the news broke.
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Skillern's friend saw her post and reached out saying he knew one of the guys. Skillern said she even thought about reaching out to them, but then the news broke Monday and that friend sent her an article about their arrests.
"For them to just be out and still vacationing was what blew my mind," she said. "I was always pretty cautious, but now it just makes it scary. It just adds fear to it."
