A New York man pleaded guilty to manslaughter after his girlfriend, with whom he shared two children, was found dead and stuffed inside the trunk of her car in Queens, the district attorney said.
Kareem Flake, 30, initially faced charges including second-degree murder, kidnapping, weapon possession and tampering with evidence for the death of Destini Smothers in Nov. 2020. He pleaded guilty to a first-degree manslaughter charge, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Wednesday.
"This young mother was brutally murdered and her family left to agonize, not knowing what happened to her as her body lay in the trunk of an abandoned car for months," Katz said in a press release. "Hopefully this plea will afford some comfort to her loved ones.”
Authorities previously said the 26-year-old Smothers was found in the trunk of a Toyota Camry with no plates in March 2021, months after she went missing in New York City following a birthday party in November. The city medical examiner determined that Smothers died from a gunshot to the head, according to Katz, and her death was ruled a homicide.
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Smothers, a mother of two from Troy, in Rensselaer County, traveled to Queens in early November for a funeral but went out two nights before that service to a local bowling alley to celebrate her 26th birthday, according to charges. No one saw her again afterward.
Flake later told Smothers' family the two got into an argument while in Smothers' black 2011 Toyota Camry. At some point during that fight, he said Smothers got out of the car and walked off, leaving her purse, wallet, keys and ID behind.
"He actually got in my car and took me to where he said she jumped out in Astoria. Took me and my family," said Tima Fowler, a cousin of Smothers'. "I don't understand how he did that. But he did it and we found the car, the car is found now, she's found."
Smothers' family said Flake went missing shortly after.
According to a senior NYPD official, the car had been abandoned and parked near the intersection of 134th Avenue and 151st Place in South Jamaica for "a while" before sanitation tow trucks came to pick it up. Neighbors said that the car, which was later determined to be Smothers', had been parked there for months, and that abandoned cars are common in the area.
The tow truck crew drove off with the vehicle, then noticed a problem with a tire and pulled over on Lefferts Boulevard to pop the trunk and look for a new one, an NYPD official said at the time Smothers' body was found. Police said the truck made it to South Ozone park when the decomposing remains were discovered.
A senior NYPD official with direct knowledge of the case told News 4 that clothing on the body matched what Smothers was wearing when she was reported missing, with no further signs of trauma, aside from the deadly gunshot wound. Her ID was also on her, the official said, and the body was in the fetal position.
The couple's two young children had been staying at Smothers' mother's home in the Bronx at the time she went missing. The family got concerned when Smothers didn't show up there to pick up her clothes for the funeral she planned to attend Nov. 5.
“She loves those children and would do anything for them,” aunt Shareen King told Dateline, which covered the case in late November. “She wouldn’t just leave them. And there’s no way in hell she’s not calling her mama. My sister is just devastated.”
Flake, also from Troy, was arrested April 9, 2022, in Florida, before being extradited to New York. Two senior law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC New York that Flake was arrested at a Florida train station on another domestic violence charge against a woman he was dating.
"On the run for more than a year, this defendant is now in custody and charged with the brutal murder of his girlfriend, who was also the mother of his two young children," Katz said in the press release. "This is the worst possible outcome for any individual experiencing intimate partner violence, and we express out condolences to the victim's family."
Attorney information for Flake was not immediately available. He will be sentenced Sept. 28 to a prison term of 22 years, in accordance to the plea deal.
