Spring breaker who died after being drugged, raped in Miami was ‘good person’
The Pennsylvania woman who was drugged, raped and found dead in a Miami Beach hotel room over spring break was a “genuinely good person,” according to a close friend who ripped the “sick” suspects accused of targeting her.
Christine Englehardt, 24, of Richboro outside Philadelphia, was found dead and semi-nude Thursday at the Albion Hotel in South Beach, where the pizza shop assistant manager had reportedly traveled by herself to take part in the annual spring break revelry.
Two North Carolina men, Evoire Collier, 21, and Dorian Taylor, 24, were arrested Sunday for allegedly drugging Englehardt with a “green pill” before raping her and stealing her credit cards, according to police and reports. Both Greensboro men remain held without bail.
Friends and co-workers of Englehardt are stunned that the North Carolina men would allegedly target such a “genuinely good person,” WPVI reported.
“This is the last person I would ever think this would happen to,” Englehardt’s close friend Samantha DiFrancesco told the station. “It just breaks your heart when you know she was a genuinely good person who would do anything for anybody.”
DiFrancesco said she was outraged by the details of the crime.
“To think what she went through, it’s sickening,” DiFrancesco continued. “It’s sick.”
DiFrancesco said her friend always “lit up the whole room” whenever she was around.
“Her laugh was the most contagious laugh,” DiFrancesco said.
John Ordway, who owns Jules Thin Crust Pizza in Newtown where Englehardt worked, said he was shocked upon hearing of her tragic death.
“She was a lovely young woman who was well-respected by her co-workers and staff,” Ordway told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We along with her loving family will very much miss her.”
Prior to Englehardt’s death, Taylor was seen “holding her by the neck so she could stand,” a Miami Beach police detective said at a court hearing Monday.
Investigators said both men had sex with Englehardt at the hotel and Taylor allegedly forced himself on her as she appeared to be unconscious.
Collier and Taylor are currently charged with burglary with battery, sexual battery, petty theft and fraudulent use of a credit card for using Englehardt’s stolen cards during their vacation.
Police are still looking into whether Englehardt died from an overdose, potentially from the pill they supplied her, which was believed to be Percocet, according to Miami Beach police.
Englehardt’s cause of death had not been determined as of Monday, with further testing needed. Collier and Taylor could face a manslaughter or murder charge if the drug that Taylor allegedly gave her played a role in her death, the Miami Herald reported Tuesday.
An online fundraiser set up to help offset Englehardt’s funeral costs had eclipsed $27,000 as of early Wednesday.
“Christine Englehardt’s life was taken from her,” the website reads. “Two men who don’t deserve to be named stole this woman’s entire future in a very sickening way and put her mother and father in a great deal of heartbreak.”
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