Fort Lauderdale police have charged 34-year-old Altavious Powell with premeditated murder in the death of a woman whose body was found in a residential neighborhood Wednesday morning.

Officers responded to the 200 block of Northwest 15th Avenue shortly before 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, where they discovered the body. The woman was later identified as 30-year-old Daneshia Heller.

Powell was arrested Thursday. According to police, detectives initially found and arrested him on charges not related to Heller's death. During the course of their investigation, detectives were then able to identify Powell as a homicide suspect, at which point he was charged with premeditated murder.

Questions remain

According to NBC Miami, police have not disclosed the cause or manner of Heller's death, nor have they provided details about how her body came to be on the street that morning. The relationship between Powell and Heller, if any, remains unclear.

The sequence of Powell's arrest is worth noting. Detectives encountered him during their investigation and initially took him into custody on separate, unrelated charges. That arrest apparently gave investigators the window they needed to build the murder case. It is a reminder that routine police work, the unglamorous grind of knocking on doors and running down leads, still solves crimes.

A city that keeps making the wrong headlines

Fort Lauderdale, like many mid-size American cities, faces persistent violent crime that rarely commands national attention. A woman's body found on a residential block before most people have poured their morning coffee is the kind of story that flashes across a local news ticker and vanishes. For Daneshia Heller's family, it will never vanish.

Premeditated murder is the most serious charge Florida prosecutors can bring short of capital murder. That the charge came within roughly 24 hours of the body's discovery suggests detectives moved quickly and believe the evidence is substantial. Whether the case holds up through the legal process remains to be seen, but the speed of the arrest at least signals that Fort Lauderdale police treated this with the urgency it deserved.

A 30-year-old woman is dead. A man sits in custody, facing the rest of his life behind bars if convicted. And a neighborhood on Northwest 15th Avenue now carries a memory that no amount of time fully erases.