The FBI is investigating the case of a North Carolina woman who was found dead in October in a rented luxury villa in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
The FBI’s Charlotte Field Office confirmed they were looking into the case of Shanquella Robinson, 25, who was found unconscious in a home on 29 October.
“You took my only jewel from me,” her father, Bernard Robinson, told CNN. “You put a big hole in my heart. The only thing I can do is fight for her; I cannot let her die in vain.”
Robinson was on vacation in Cabo with her college friends from Winston-Salem State University.
Her family last heard from her the night before her death.
A death certificate for the 25-year-old, who ran a hair-braiding business in Charlotte, North Carolina, lists her cause of death as “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation,” which is instability or excessive movement in the uppermost neck vertebrae.
Authorities are now treating the death as a homicide.
A video circulating online, which Robinson’s family says depicts their daughter, shows the woman in a physical altercation with another woman, though it’s unclear when or where the video takes place.
No charges have announced, and authorities haven’t released the names of the friends who were traveling with Robinson.
The State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur told CNN the investigation is ongoing.
Robinson’s mother Salamondra said in an interview she got a “frantic” call from Shanquella’s friends early on in the trip.
“They said she wasn’t feeling well. She had alcohol poisoning,” the mother said. “They couldn’t get a pulse. Each one of the people that was there with her was telling different stories.”
“When the autopsy came back, they said it didn’t have anything to do with the alcohol,” she continued. “[They] said that she had a broken neck and her spine in the back was cracked. She had been beaten…I know that’s not going to bring my child back, but I want something done about it…She had a heart of gold. She loved everybody, and pretty much everybody loved her.”
