MIAMI — Records show Stephen Ennis left state prison on Sept. 2 after serving time on a grand theft auto conviction out of the Jacksonville area. Five days later, police say he was in Miami and stabbed another man multiple times outside a church in the city’s Overtown neighborhood.
Authorities said the victim only knew the assailant by his alias “Storm,” but was recently able to identify the 31-year-old Ennis as the suspect ― because they ended up as cellmates.
Ennis, who is homeless and has been jailed in Miami-Dade since late December on unrelated theft charges, now faces an aggravated battery charge.
Investigators said the stabbing happened the morning of Sept. 7 at the Greater Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Police said they were sent to the church, located at 245 NW Eighth St., just after 6 a.m. that Sunday and found the victim “underneath the stairs with multiple stab wounds.”
Authorities said the victim asked a passerby to call 911 and medics took the victim to Jackson Memorial Hospital for treatment.
At JMH, detectives said the victim told them that he had met “Storm” about an hour before the stabbing and confronted him for stealing from an acquaintance of his known as “Boston.”
Miami police said the victim described Ennis as, among other things, “flamboyant” with “tattoos everywhere.”
According to an arrest report, the victim told detectives that Ennis had “mentioned that he had been recently released from prison” before committing the stabbing.
Court records show police arrested Ennis on Dec. 23 after accusing him of stealing items from the perfume and purse aisle of the Marshalls at 255 E. Flagler St. in downtown Miami. He’s also accused of two previous thefts at that store.
Police said the victim eventually ended up in jail himself and, on Jan. 22, his attorney called the victim’s advocate to report that he now “knew the name of the person who stabbed him,” because they were cellmates.
According to the report, the victim later told detectives he “was in fear as (Ennis) was not removed as his cellmate.”
Ennis, listed in records as “Stephens Ennis,” was formally re-arrested on Saturday while locked up at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Records show he was sent to the Metrowest Detention Center as of Monday morning and his bond is listed as “to be set.”
An extensive criminal history
Florida Department of Corrections records show that Ennis, who, besides “Storm,” has also used the alias “Alanna Ivory,” has an extensive criminal history.
Besides his most recent state prison stint stemming from the aforementioned Duval County grand theft auto conviction, he spent four years locked up after burglary, fraud, fleeing and eluding and grand theft convictions out of Marion and Duval counties, leaving prison in June 2021.
Records show he was arrested again in Duval County on another fleeing and eluding charge in September 2022 and spent about 11 months locked up after being convicted the following January.
According to the FDOC, Ennis was released from prison on Dec. 16, 2023 and, five days after getting out, committed the Jacksonville-area vehicle theft that led to his most recent prison stint.
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