Miya Marcano’s family: ‘Precious moments’ lost
Criticizes Orange County sheriff after autopsy released
The family of Miya Marcano again criticized the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office’s investigation into her disappearance and death on Tuesday, saying the autopsy report released Monday leaves them “with more questions than answers.”
In a statement, family attorney Daryl Washington said the autopsy, which described the 19-year-old Valencia College student’s killing as “homicide by undetermined means,” goes against public comments by Sheriff John Mina, who has said Marcano was likely killed before authorities were notified of her disappearance. “This family continues to struggle with not knowing the true cause of Miya’s death. The release of this report supports our contentions that Sheriff Mina’s public conclusions regarding the events surrounding Miya’s death are not supported by the evidence and are purely speculative,” Washington said.
The Sheriff ’s Office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Investigators said Marcano was taken from the apartment by Armando Caballero, a 27-year-old maintenance worker who was said to have made unwanted advances at Marcano and used a master key to enter her apartment before she went missing.
Caballero was found dead by suicide days later inside a garage at an apartment complex in unincorporated Longwood, while Marcano’s body was found after a weeklong search in a wooded area at the dilapidated Tymber Skan apartment complex near Millennia.
The autopsy added that her “nearly completely skeletonized” body was bound using duct tape and that her mouth and nose had “possibly” at some point been covered. The restraints also indicated “some type of assault,” but she couldn’t be examined for certain injuries because of her decomposition, wrote Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner Joshua Stephany.
Marcano’s killing was mourned by many in the community in Orlando and in South Florida, where she was raised. The investigation also caught the attention of the British Virgin Islands, where some of her family is from and is known personally by dignitaries who publicly supported them during the search.
From the beginning, the Marcanos and their supporters accused the Sheriff’s Office of not initially taking the case seriously, later releasing cellphone video of relatives confronting Caballero in front of a deputy who later let him drive away. The family also accused the Preiss Company, which manages Arden Villas, of negligence after they said it didn’t allow access to records detailing the use of the master key early enough.
The search for Marcano stretched throughout Orlando and into Volusia County and involved several agencies and dozens of volunteers. The day her body was found, Mina said investigators tracked several days of Caballero’s cellphone data — but cell towers pinged Caballero’s location near Tymber Skan for about 20 minutes just hours after Marcano went missing.
“We do know that you do not duct tape and bound a person if they are already dead, which gives us reason to believe Miya may have left that apartment alive,” Washington said. “We want to reiterate that we believe
COURTESY precious moments were lost in the effort to find Miya due to the inability of the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office to take Miya’s disappearance seriously and the Preiss Company’s failure to provide the Key Fob reports in a timely manner.”