A daughter’s question after Ebony Duncan vanished became one piece of a broader case that ended with six guilty verdicts.
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — When Ebony Duncan disappeared after leaving work in September 2023, her daughter turned to one of the people she believed might know where her mother was: Duncan’s former boyfriend, Charles Smith-Howell. Nearly three years later, a Jackson County jury convicted Smith-Howell of killing Duncan.
The exchange between Duncan’s daughter and Smith-Howell was brief but became part of a much larger evidentiary record. Court documents said the daughter contacted him on Facebook Messenger and asked whether he had seen or spoken with Duncan. Smith-Howell replied that he had seen her the night before and said he was sorry if something bad had happened to her. Prosecutors later paired that communication with cellphone data, surveillance footage, vehicle records, DNA evidence and witness accounts. On July 17, 2026, jurors found Smith-Howell, 44, guilty of second-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon, abandonment of a corpse and two counts of tampering with physical evidence.
The daughter’s message came while Duncan’s family was still hoping to find her alive. Duncan, 44, had last been seen outside Sunterra Springs, a senior care facility in Independence where she worked. Surveillance footage showed her leaving the facility around 6 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2023, talking on a cellphone and getting into a silver Chrysler 200. She did not report for work the next day, and relatives could not reach her. Police conducted a welfare check at her apartment, but no one answered. The missing-person case quickly drew attention because Duncan’s routine made her sudden absence unusual to the people who knew her.
What investigators learned about the phone call before Duncan entered the car sharpened their focus. Records showed that Duncan’s phone was communicating with a number associated with Smith-Howell at the time she was seen approaching the Chrysler. Co-workers and relatives told investigators that Duncan had been trying to end the relationship and arrange for Smith-Howell to collect belongings from her home. A co-worker also told authorities Duncan had said Smith-Howell threatened to kill her. Those statements did not by themselves establish what had happened, but they gave detectives a reason to examine his movements and communications as they reconstructed Duncan’s final known hours.
Police then began matching devices to places. Cellphone records cited in court documents showed Duncan’s phone and Smith-Howell’s phone moving from Independence toward Kansas City and Jackson County after she disappeared. License-plate reader data placed the Chrysler on a route that corresponded with the phones. Investigators said both phones were in the vicinity of the wooded area where Duncan’s remains were later found for several minutes that evening. The overlap allowed prosecutors to argue that the communications evidence was not isolated: it fit with a physical path that could be compared against cameras, plate readers and later discoveries connected to the Chrysler.
The Chrysler itself became another central piece of the case. It was owned by a woman who was then involved with Smith-Howell, according to investigators. Police initially searched for both the woman and the car as the missing-person investigation expanded. Detectives found the Chrysler on Sept. 21, covered by a tarp behind a Kansas City house associated with Smith-Howell’s acquaintances. Inside, investigators found blood on the driver’s-side interior door handle. Laboratory testing later determined that the blood matched Duncan’s DNA profile. That finding gave prosecutors physical evidence tying Duncan to the vehicle she had been seen entering on the night she vanished.
Other objects recovered during the investigation helped connect Smith-Howell to the same car. On Sept. 14, officers took him into custody while he was driving a Buick Encore. A subsequent search of the Buick found the title and license plate linked to the Chrysler, along with ammunition. The ammunition led to a separate federal prosecution because Smith-Howell was prohibited from possessing it as a felon; local reporting said he later pleaded guilty in that case. The state murder investigation continued separately. Detectives also recovered Duncan’s cellphone from a woman who said she had found it on a bridge, and police reported finding blood inside the phone case.
For Duncan’s family, the case remained a disappearance for weeks. Co-workers publicly described her as dependable, caring and deeply connected to her family. One colleague said Duncan had been eager to meet a new grandchild. Her obituary later described a woman who earned a GED and nursing credentials while pregnant, built a career in health care and later graduated from culinary school. Those details stood apart from the evidence charts and court filings, but they helped explain why relatives and co-workers reacted so quickly when Duncan failed to show up for work and stopped responding to calls.
On Oct. 31, 2023, the search reached a devastating turning point. Investigators following leads searched a wooded area near 83rd Street and Hillcrest Road in south Kansas City. A dog alerted to human remains that police said carried identifiers consistent with Duncan, and her identity was later confirmed. An autopsy determined she had been shot. The location became significant not only because it ended the uncertainty over whether Duncan was alive, but also because investigators could compare it with cellphone location records from the evening she disappeared. Those records placed the phones associated with Duncan and Smith-Howell in that area between about 7:46 p.m. and 7:53 p.m., according to court documents.
Investigators also eventually located and interviewed the owner of the Chrysler in Tampa, Florida. According to court records reported by KSHB, she said Smith-Howell often borrowed the car and had it on Sept. 6. She described him leaving and returning that evening and later saying the vehicle needed to go to a shop. She also made a statement to investigators indicating that a friend had supposedly killed someone in her car. Authorities did not charge her with wrongdoing in Duncan’s death. Her account gave detectives another source of information about who possessed the Chrysler during the hours surrounding Duncan’s disappearance.
Smith-Howell was charged with Duncan’s murder in July 2024 after investigators had spent months collecting and testing evidence. By then, the case had moved far beyond the initial Facebook exchange. Prosecutors could point to the surveillance video at Duncan’s workplace, the call between Duncan and Smith-Howell, location data from both phones, license-plate reader records, the Chrysler’s ownership and recovery, Duncan’s DNA in the car, the items recovered from the Buick, witness accounts about the former relationship and the later discovery of Duncan’s body. The trial lasted four days before jurors returned guilty verdicts on each count submitted to them.
The conviction changed Smith-Howell’s legal status from accused defendant to convicted offender, but the case still has a major proceeding ahead. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 5, 2026. The court will determine punishment on the murder count and the related convictions involving the weapon, the abandonment of Duncan’s body and evidence tampering. Recent reporting reviewed for this article did not identify a later sentencing date or another post-verdict ruling that displaced the Oct. 5 hearing.
The Facebook message remains one of the most memorable details because it captures the uncertainty Duncan’s daughter faced in the first hours of the search. In court, however, the case that led to conviction was much broader than that exchange. It was built from multiple forms of evidence gathered over months and tested before a jury nearly three years after Duncan was last seen leaving work.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 27, 2026.