A man will soon face trial in 1990 Miami Beach killing. He chose to represent himself
A sharply dressed man shot and killed a woman before raping her friend after barging his way into a South Beach apartment in 1990. More than 30 years later, a man accused of being the ominous killer will soon face a jury while also representing himself.
The trial of Dale Ewers, 57, is set to begin with jury selection on Feb. 20 before Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez. Ewers has been charged with first-degree murder, sexual battery and kidnapping in connection to the Miami Beach case.
On Sept. 21, 1990, a man sporting dark slacks, a white pinstriped button-up and a black briefcase knocked on the door of 34-year-old Mercedes Perez. He asked for the phone number of the complex’s manager.
Within moments, the man forced his way inside, shooting Perez at point-blank range before forcing her friend, who was visiting from New Jersey, into a bathroom, police say. He raped Perez’s friend at gunpoint before ransacking the apartment.
The man then locked the woman in a closet and escaped.
A routine hearing on Tuesday featured intense exchanges between Ewers, who is representing himself, and Tinkler Mendez. The judge had to frequently order Ewers to stop rambling and speaking over attorneys.
Tinkler Mendez also denied several of Ewers’ jumbled requests, including to gain access to sexual assault kits and to hire a new DNA expert as the one retained by his former lawyers has since died. Ewers agreed to call the state’s DNA expert to testify in his defense.
But Ewers had another odd ask: He wanted the names of all reporters present in the courtroom. While being escorted back to jail, Ewers turned to the cameras and declared that he was available for interviews.
How a detective solved Perez’s cold case
Ewers, who lived near Perez at the time of the killing, was on police’s radar shortly after the murder. One of his neighbors had even tipped off police, telling investigators that Ewers resembled a sketch of the killer.
But, for some reason, detectives didn’t follow up on the lead — and the case went unsolved.
That was until 2012, when a Miami Beach cold-case detective submitted for testing DNA samples left behind at the crime scene. They were a match to Ewers, police say. Law enforcement obtained Ewers’ DNA after he was convicted in 2008 of burglary in Massachusetts.
Just months before Perez’s murder, Ewers was arrested in Hallandale after he was found hiding in the bushes near an apartment complex. Officers found a hunting knife and a .32-caliber pistol on him. He ultimately pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and was sentenced to three years of probation in Broward.
Ewers’ arrest in the Miami-Dade rape and murder was held up for years by the lengthy and complicated process of seeking extradition from Jamaica, where he was deported after the burglary conviction.
This story was supplemented with reporting from the Miami Herald archives.
This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 3:22 PM.
