INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — A Kansas City man is facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of his ex-girlfriend in September 2023.
Investigators were looking at Ebony Duncan's ex-boyfriend, Charles Smith-Howell, as a person of interest when she first went missing and was found dead in late 2023.
Smith-Howell is now being charged with her murder, along with other charges including tampering with evidence, armed criminal action, abandoning a corpse and unlawful use of a weapon.
The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office filed the charges on July 17.
Court documents report DNA tied Smith-Howell to Duncan's murder, as blood found in a car he was driving belonged to her.
Cell phone records also placed the two together the day she went missing.
Duncan's last movements
Duncan was last seen leaving her job at Sunterra Springs, a nursing home in Independence, around 6 p.m. on Sept. 6.
Surveillance video showed her talking on her cell phone and then getting into a silver Chrysler 200 that pulled up outside her work.
After it drove away, she was never heard from again.
Investigators learned that at the time she was seen talking on the phone, her phone was communicating with a number belonging to Smith-Howell.
Additionally, court documents noted Smith-Howell's new girlfriend drove a car exactly like the one seen in the surveillance video.
Duncan's family reported her missing the next day, Sept. 7, after they couldn't get a hold of her and her coworkers had called saying she never showed up for work.
An Independence police officer also went to Duncan's apartment that day to conduct a wellness check. No one came to the door.
Suspicions surrounding Smith-Howell
Amber Williams, Duncan's co-worker, told KSHB 41 News investigative reporter Sarah Plake that Duncan was concerned the day she went missing.
"He had drove by the building a couple times that day," Williams said.
Court records said family and co-workers told investigators Duncan was arguing with Smith-Howell. She was trying to coordinate a time for him to pick up the last of his belongings from her home.
Family members told Plake that Duncan was not with Smith-Howell at the time of her disappearance but that he was angry and jealous because of the breakup.
According to federal court records, Duncan confided in a co-worker that Smith-Howell threatened to kill her.
Williams said the building's surveillance video was checked to see what happened when Duncan left work. While she couldn't see who was driving the silver car, Williams said it looked like Duncan knew the person.
Duncan's daughter told police she reached out to Smith-Howell about her mother's disappearance and he responded, "I saw your mother last night." He also said, "I'm sorry if something bad happened to her."
Finding Ebony
Weeks passed, and on Oct. 31, Duncan's body was found in a wooded area near 83rd and Hillcrest in south Kansas City, Missouri.
Her autopsy revealed she had been shot.
From the time Duncan went missing to when she was found, investigators were piecing evidence together.
Cell phone records for Duncan and Smith-Howell showed they were traveling together on Interstate 70 from Independence to Jackson County.
The records lined up with the time Ebony was seen on her phone while getting into the silver car and when the car drove off.
License plate readers also showed the silver car driving the same route as the cell phones, according to court records.
The phone records put Duncan and Smith-Howell together at a house in Jackson County where Smith-Howell's new girlfriend lived.
That girlfriend and her silver Chrysler also went missing after Duncan. Investigators intended to find both, hoping to question the girlfriend about what she knew.
On Sept. 14, investigators tracked Duncan's phone to a homeless woman, who said she found the phone on a bridge. Police said they found blood on the inside of the phone case.
Watching Smith-Howell
At the same time, police were watching Smith-Howell's movements.
He was driving a Buick Encore, which belonged to another one of his girlfriends. Police followed him and took him into custody for questioning on Sept. 14.
The next day, police executed a search warrant on the car, where they found a full magazine containing 12 9mm bullets.
Police also found the title and license plate belonging to the silver Chrysler inside the Buick.
Smith-Howell was arrested on federal gun charges for possessing the ammunition as a felon. He pleaded guilty in April.
However, he refused to speak to detectives about Duncan's case.
DNA evidence
On Sept. 21, detectives found the silver Chrysler covered with a tarp in the backyard of a house in Kansas City, Missouri. The people living there were Smith-Howell's acquaintances and said he came over on Sept. 8.
Investigators searched the car and found blood on the driver's side interior door handle. The blood was sent to a lab for testing, which revealed it was an exact match to Duncan's DNA profile.
Eventually, Smith-Howell's girlfriend was located and interviewed in Tampa, Florida.
She confirmed she had been in an intimate relationship with Smith-Howell. According to court records, she told investigators that her "friend, not boyfriend, supposedly killed someone" in her car.
The girlfriend said Smith-Howell frequently borrowed her car and had it on the day Duncan went missing.
She also said he picked her up from work, dropped her off at her house, then came back "a little after six." The woman said he left a second time to "go make a run" and came back to her house after 7 p.m.
The girlfriend told investigators Smith-Howell then claimed he needed to take her car to the shop.
On Sept. 7, she said he called her saying he needed to lay low and couldn't stay at her house for a while.
The day Duncan went missing, Smith-Howell's and Duncan's phones were in the area where her body was found, between 7:46 p.m. and 7:53 p.m., per court records.
Smith-Howell is being held in the Caldwell County Detention Center.
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