Charles Smith-Howell
Introduction
Charles Smith-Howell is a 44-year-old Kansas City man sentenced to 72 years in prison for the 2023 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Ebony Duncan, a 44-year-old nursing-home worker who vanished after leaving her shift at a nursing home in Independence, Missouri, on September 6, 2023, and whose remains were found nearly two months later in a wooded area of south Kansas City. A Jackson County jury convicted Smith-Howell in July 2026 of second-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon, abandonment of a corpse and two counts of tampering with physical evidence, and the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office announced on November 6, 2026 that he had received consecutive sentences totalling 72 years: 30 years for the murder and 42 more across the remaining counts.
Background Information
Duncan was last seen leaving her job at Sunterra Springs, a nursing home in Independence, on the evening of September 6, 2023. Surveillance footage showed her walking from work before she got into a silver Chrysler 200. According to a probable cause statement, Duncan and Smith-Howell had previously dated. Her daughter reported her missing the next day, telling police she had not seen or heard from her mother since she left work. Phone records showed Duncan’s phone and Smith-Howell’s travelling west from Independence toward Kansas City that evening.
The trail through the car proved decisive. Police recovered the Chrysler 200 in Kansas City on September 21, 2023; a sample from the driver’s-side interior door matched Duncan’s DNA, and the case against Smith-Howell moved forward on that evidence together with the phone-record timeline. On October 31, 2023, investigators found Duncan’s remains in a wooded area near 83rd and Hillcrest Road in Kansas City, and a medical examiner ruled her death a homicide. Smith-Howell was charged in Duncan’s death and stood trial in Jackson County in the summer of 2026.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Smith-Howell was convicted by a Jackson County jury in July 2026 of second-degree murder and four other counts in the death of Ebony Duncan and was sentenced to 72 years in prison, the terms served consecutively.
On July 17, 2026, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts: second-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon, abandonment of a corpse and two counts of tampering with physical evidence. The prosecution’s case rested on the vehicle trail and the phone-record timeline — the car she was last seen entering, his DNA evidence inside it, and the matched movements of their phones on the night she vanished. Duncan’s daughter also told police that when she contacted Smith-Howell searching for her mother, he said he had seen her the night before and was “sorry if something bad happened to her.”
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday, November 6, 2026, that Smith-Howell had been sentenced to consecutive terms: 30 years for second-degree murder, 15 years for armed criminal action, 15 years for unlawful use of a weapon, 4 years for abandonment of a corpse, and 8 years for the two tampering counts — 72 years in total. The announcement closed a case that had run from Duncan’s September 2023 disappearance through her family’s months of not knowing, the October 2023 recovery of her remains, the 2024 charging, and the July 2026 trial.
Public Reaction and Consequences
Duncan’s family and coworkers described her in terms that outlasted the case: her coworker Amber Williams told KCTV5 she was “a very caring, loving person” who was compassionate about her work. The case’s public record in Jackson County now carries the full arc: the missing-person report filed by her daughter, the phone-record timeline and the DNA match inside the car Duncan was last seen entering, and a 72-year consecutive sentence announced by the prosecutor’s office two months after the third anniversary of her disappearance.
Current Status
Smith-Howell, 44, is serving the 72-year consecutive sentence, with the murder count’s 30 years running consecutively to the 15 years for armed criminal action, 15 years for unlawful use of a weapon, 4 years for abandonment of a corpse and 8 years for the two tampering counts. The sentencing was announced by the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office on November 6, 2026.
Impact on Their Career/Life
At 44, Smith-Howell’s 72-year term means he will die in prison barring an extraordinary appellate outcome, and the conviction record — second-degree murder plus four ancillary counts, all proven by the same jury — forecloses the argument that the killing was unconnected to him beyond reasonable dispute. The case stands in the public record as a domestic-violence homicide prosecuted on digital forensics: phone tracking, license-plate readers and DNA inside the car Duncan entered on the last night anyone outside the case saw her. For Duncan’s family, the sentencing brought the formal end of a process that began with a daughter’s missing-person report on a September morning in 2023.