MIAMI – A slain woman's sister-in-law is concerned about what neighbors and security guards saw in the eight days after Miami-Dade police said a 16-year-old boy killed his mother.
The decomposing body of Renette Emile, 35, was discovered Wednesday in the apartment she shared with her 16-year-old son, Kit Darrant, and her 3-year-old son.
Marie Altidor, Emile's sister-in-law, said that with a foul smell in her face, and fear in her heart, she broke down a bedroom door at the family's apartment.
"I already smelled it," she said. "I knew there was a dead body in there."
Miami-Dade police said Darrant later confessed to choking and stabbing his mother to death March 27.
"I was so shocked, crying and yelling," Altidor said.
Darrant faces a second-degree murder charge. Miami-Dade police said Darrant told them he choked his mother unconscious, stabbed her in the back of the neck, turned her over and stabbed her in the torso and arms several times.
Then, police said, Darrant lived in the home with his 3-year-old brother for eight days while his mother's body decomposed.
"(It was) covered up with some sheets and smelled really bad, like dead rats," Altidor said.
Miami-Dade police said Darrant tried to cover up the smell with laundry detergent and deodorant so he could invite friends over for a party.
Altidor is upset that neighbors did not call police when they smelled the foul odor and that security officers did not say anything when Darrant was seen driving his mother's car around at all hours with his little brother in the back set.
She also cannot believe her nephew could do such a horrible thing and then pretend it never happened.
"He said nothing, looked normal," Altidor said. "The look I see on his face -- I don't know if he did it or not."