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The man who allegedly killed his upstate, New York girlfriend and left her body stuffed in the trunk of a car parked in Queens has been arrested in Florida, a source said on Sunday.
Kareem Flake was busted in the Sunshine State and a police source said he was being held at a correctional facility in Osceola since Friday. The NYPD has been looking to arrest Flake for the 2020 murder of Destini Smothers.
Smothers, from Troy, New York, was 26-years-old had two young children with Flake. She went missing in November 2020.
The mom’s body was discovered in March 2021 when Department of Sanitation workers towing a sedan in South Ozone Park popped the trunk and discovered her decomposing body inside.
Smothers died of a blunt impact to her head, with a skull fracture and brain injury, according to the city medical examiner’s office.
Flake was arrested in Kissimmee, Florida for domestic battery against a different woman and is being held at Osceola jail, according to the source. The NYPD is waiting to hear the results of the Florida charges brought against him before an extradition hearing is held.
It is currently unclear how long it will take to transfer Flake to New York and prosecute him for allegedly murdering Smothers.
The young mom was last seen leaving Bowlero bowling alley in November 2020, where she attended a birthday party with Flake, according to the missing person’s report filed at the time.
The couple got in a “heated argument” that night, the report says.
Her case received renewed attention in September 2021 as Gabby Petito’s gained worldwide prominence and a national conversation was sparked about “missing white woman syndrome” — the idea that posits disappearance cases involving people of color quickly fall off the national radar, while those of white women receive the bulk of the attention.
At the time, the media frenzy around Petito’s murder captivated the nation, and it had been almost a year since Smothers’ initial disappearance and an arrest had yet to be made in her murder.
Smother’s family was unable to be reached on Sunday.
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