MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A woman has been found dead inside of a room at a South Beach hotel after two men drugged and raped her, police said.
Miami Beach Police discovered the woman’s body at the Albion Hotel on 1650 James Avenue last Thursday.
Evoire Collier, 21, and Dorian Taylor, 24, who were visiting from North Carolina, were arrested on Saturday as police said they were the last two people seen with the victim, 24-year-old Christine Englehardt, who was visiting from Pennsylvania.
“I’m just shocked that the fact that she’s really gone, it’s been really hard,” said Englehardt’s best friend Hailey Davis. “She was a good person. She didn’t deserve anything like that to happen to her.”
The two men appeared in front of a judge on Monday.
“The victim couldn’t even pick up the phone to call the police or 9-1-1 after they did what they did to her,” said Judge Mindy Glazer.
Collier and Taylor have been charged with sexual battery, burglary, credit card fraud and theft. They were using Englehardt’s credit cards to fund their spring break party at the time police arrested them.
They allegedly admitted to giving Englehardt a green pill on the way to her hotel room on the morning of her death. They were caught on surveillance with her as they walked into the hotel lobby.
“She was actually staggering a little bit, and at one point co-defendant Taylor held her, behind her, around her neck, basically keeping her stable. We believe she was either intoxicated or drugged, and she could not give consent for them to actually go with her,” said a Miami Beach Police detective.
But investigators said they went into her hotel room anyway. Inside that room, Englehardt was robbed, raped and left unconscious. She was found dead on her bed later in the day.
Two days later, Collier and Taylor were arrested and identified as the men in the surveillance video.
Both men were denied bond in court, and they will remain in jail.
“You’re both being held on some serious charges. You battered a helpless victim,” Glazer said.
If investigators find that Englehardt’s death was connected to the green pill the men allegedly gave her, they could face additional charges related to her death.
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