Authorities say Evelin Carolina Enamorado-Cisnado, 26, was found dead March 10 and Lhis Brito-Costa, 23, was arrested the next day.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The killing of 26-year-old Evelin Carolina Enamorado-Cisnado in an east Charlotte apartment has become both a murder case and a family struggle spanning borders, with relatives saying they are trying to return her body to Honduras after police arrested a 23-year-old suspect.
What makes the case urgent now is not only the pending charge against Lhis Brito-Costa, but also the way Enamorado-Cisnado’s family has framed the loss: as a sudden, violent death followed by the hard work of mourning from afar. Police have identified the victim and suspect, but many details about the final hours before officers arrived at the apartment remain unknown in public records released so far.
Police first announced the case on Tuesday, March 10, when officers responded shortly after 4:30 p.m. to a welfare check in the 4300 block of Central Avenue. Officers found a woman inside the apartment and pronounced her dead at the scene. Two days later, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department named the victim as Enamorado-Cisnado and said her next of kin had been notified. That identification turned a sparse police bulletin into a story centered on a person with relatives, a home country and a family now speaking publicly about her death.
According to local reporting that cited court documents, a DoorDash driver had gone to the apartment to deliver food, noticed a foul smell and later told police that someone at the residence said there was a dead woman inside. Investigators then found Enamorado-Cisnado’s body in a closet, behind a door and covered with towels, the reports said. Detectives said the body had already begun decomposing. The police department has not publicly said who made the statement to the delivery driver, and it has not released a detailed reconstruction of the victim’s final movements before the welfare check.
Relatives filled in part of the human picture after the arrest. A family member said publicly that Enamorado-Cisnado was from Honduras and that loved ones were working to transport her body back there. The same relative described deep anger and grief, saying the family believed Enamorado-Cisnado was killed by someone she no longer wanted to be with. Court records cited by local media said Brito-Costa and Enamorado-Cisnado had been in a relationship and that investigators believed jealousy over another relationship was part of the motive. Police have not publicly released a fuller statement from the suspect or a complete account of the evidence supporting that claim.
The criminal case has advanced even as the family’s burial plans remain unresolved. Police said Brito-Costa was arrested on Wednesday, March 11, interviewed by homicide detectives and transferred to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office. Local reports said she was charged with first-degree murder, ordered held without bond and scheduled to return to court on April 2. That left two tracks moving at once: a homicide prosecution inside Mecklenburg County’s court system and a family effort to move a loved one’s body out of North Carolina and back to Honduras.
Even the way the case surfaced has shaped how people understand it. Instead of emerging through a long public search or a dramatic chase, it broke open through an everyday delivery stop and then widened through official identification, court filings and family statements. The ordinary setting of an apartment complex on Central Avenue has stood in sharp contrast to the details investigators described. For relatives, the event is not only a headline about a hidden body, but a lasting break in a family’s life and plans.
For now, the suspect had been publicly charged, the investigation remained active, and the family’s publicly stated goal was still to bring Enamorado-Cisnado home to Honduras.
Author note: Last updated April 8, 2026.