Dale Ewers is accused in the 1990 murder of Mercedes Perez.
After four days of trial, jurors found there was enough evidence to convict a man for fatally shooting a woman in the head and raping her roommate.
Dale Ewers entered the Miami Beach apartment in 1990 to ask for a phone number. When he was let in by the victims, police say he shot and killed Mercedes Perez and sexually assaulted her friend.
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The surviving victim took the stand on Monday and told jurors, “He turned me around. My back towards him. Put his left hand on my mouth and with his right hand put the handgun to my head.”
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Evidence was limited, which is why the case went cold until 2017 when DNA was found in a towel inside the apartment linked to Ewers.
The surviving victim told police Ewers raped her.
“He finished. He told me to urinate. He took a towel that was in the bathroom and told me to clean myself off," she said.
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Ewers, now 60, was arrested in Jamaica by island authorities. He had been deported to Jamaica several years before after serving time in Massachusetts following a 2008 arrest.
During his first day of trial, jurors saw the picture of a bloody mattress and a video reenactment police filmed with the surviving victim the day after the murder.
Ewers attorneys were hoping jurors had doubts in how Ewers was identified and could avoid a guilty verdict.
However, after a few hours of deliberation, jurors found him guilty as charged, including murder in the first degree, robbery with a firearm, sexual battery, and kidnapping.
Ewers will be sentenced March 19.
