Q. What is it supposed to be on the show? A. An apartment house. Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A. In a bad part of Miami. Q. When did we see it on the show? A. In Episode 4, of Season 5, "Beauty And The Beast". The police are investigating a series of decapitation/mutilation murders, occuring in Miami's Venezuelan community, linked to a violent religious cult, called Santa Muerte. They have managed to trace clues back to two possible suspects, Carlos & Marcos Fuentes. In this scene, the police (led by Debra) stage a raid on the suspects' apartment house. We see them enter the building through a rear alley, maneuver through the hallways, and then enter the suspect's apartment by force. Inside, they find the apartment occupied by multiple families.  One frightened man signals Debra which way to look, and she discovers a secret room, hidden behind a large hole in the wall. In the chamber, she finds it decorated in garish colors, and adorned with a host of cult statues. She also finds Caarlos Fuentes hiding in the back room, holding a machete to the throat of a young man. Debra has the suspect in her gunsights, but with the hostage in jeopardy, she hesitates. The suspect then slashes the hostage's throat, shoves him into Debra, and jumps out the window before Debra can shoot him. Later, we see them back outside, with the young man being loaded by paramedics into an ambulance. Debra cautions them not to let him die, and she clearly feels responsible for not shooting Fuentes before he wounded the victim. Q. What is it actually in real life? A. An apartment house.

A. This scene apartment house is located at 409 W. 3rd Street, in downtown Long Beach, CA.

That's on the north side of 3rd Street, just west of Chestnut Ave.

However, they didn't shoot the front of the apartment house.  The exterior filming took place in the alley (Roble Way) that runs behind (north of) the apartment house. As the scene starts, the camera first looks west down Roble Way, then swings around to look east down the same alley (towards Chestnut).

This scene is just a block west of the church they used for Rita's funeral parlor.
And it's about half a mile southeast of Drake Park (where they filmed the scene of the woman's head being found by police), and the botanica (where they found the man's head), as well as the home by the park (where police questioned neighbors about the crime) and the suicide house.
It's also not far from the place where Dexter rented the moving van, and the bar where Angel got into a fight.



I shot these photos of the apartment house in October 2010.






My shot above, looking southwest down the alley behind the apartment house, roughly matches
the screencap of the alley below. The trash container (with the graffiti-covered sign above it),
seen below was where the red pickup truck is parked in my photo above.

[ Warning: This is a private apartment house. Do not trespass on their property,
knock on their doors, or do anything else the might disturb the residents. ]


Here is an aerial photo of the apartment house. And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  In previous seasons, I've usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing the episodes, using clues from the various scenes.  By the 5th season, though, I'd developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept an eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and would let me know in advance when something was about to film there.

Between those reports, and my own personal reconnaissance around town, by the time the first episode aired, I already knew most (but not all) of the filming locations, and only needed to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the correct locations.

This group of helpful fans includes Kerry, Rick, Joel, Geoff, Ellen, Julie, Susan, Jeff, and others. My thanks to all of them.

This particular heads-up came from Rick, who let me know back in July that they were filming here.  (Thanks, Rick!)