SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – After being arrested earlier this week for a fatal stabbing in 2018, a man has now been charged with first-degree murder.

34-year-old Kidus Yohannes has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed and killed 20-year-old Candace Samples in Salt Lake City in November of 2018.

Yohannes is also accused of stabbing another man that same evening. That man was taken to a hospital in critical condition.

He was arrested for the crime on Monday, nearly 3 years after the alleged murder.

According to a probable cause statement, On November 7, 2018, officers responded to the area of 400 N 300 W where a stabbing had just occurred.

When officers arrived, they found two victims, a man, and a woman. The woman, later identified as Samples, was taken to a local hospital where she was later pronounced dead.

An autopsy was later performed on Samples, revealing that she had been stabbed over 26 times, a probable cause statement shows.

After interviewing witnesses at the scene, detectives learned that Samples and another man reportedly stole Yohannes’ cellphone from the Marmalade Library located at 280 W 500 N prior to the stabbing.

“The suspect chased the female across the street and was holding her at knife point demanding that he get his cellphone back,” police wrote in the probable cause statement. “The suspect released the other male believing that the female still had his cellphone and made statements to witnesses and the female victim that he would kill for his phone while holding her at knife point.”

Police were then able to identify Yohannes using surveillance video from a nearby convenience store.

In May of 2021, forensic testing was performed on Yohannes’ clothing he was wearing that evening, which located blood later determined to belong to Samples.

“Homicide investigations are sometimes long and complicated but we never rest, and cases are never ‘cold,’ the Salt Lake City Police department said in a tweet announcing Yohannes’ arrest Monday.

Yohannes is scheduled to appear in court again on July 27. He is currently being held in jail without bail.