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A 25-year old Charlotte, NC woman traveled to San Jose del Cabo for a vacation with her friends, they had booked a villa at a high end community located north of of the city. She didn’t come back, she died, she was murdered in that villa. To be precise, Villa Linda 32 located within the Cabo Villas.
The viral video of Shanquella Robinson being beaten by one of her traveling companions while others watched, videoed the assault and urged her to fight back is beyond disturbing and raises so many questions surrounding her death. Couple this with the attempt to cover up her cause of death by these same traveling companions, the attending Mexican physician, and perhaps the the resort property in San Jose del Cabo and the local police, adds to the disgust.
Mexico – the investigation
Robinson and her six traveling companions arrived at their vacation villa, “Villa Linda 32” on October 28, 2022 with a departure date of October 31. They each signed in, individually with Cabo Villas. The names are: Wenter Essece Donovan, Khali Cooke, Alysse Hyatt, Malik Dyer, Daejhanae Jackson, Nazeer Wiggins, and Shanquella Robinson.
A number of videos, including one taken by Robinson herself, are circulating which help us understand the timeline surrounding the death of Shanquella Robinson.
The first is taken by Robinson with her entering the room where her traveling companions are talking having called out, playfully, that it didn’t take that long to get naked.
The second more disturbing video taken by one of her traveling companions, taken the night of October 28, shows a sleeping Robinson in a hanging chair and one can hear someone say, “We’ve got our first dead body here, body, body, body, body.” This video has been attributed to Khali Cooke.
The third and most disturbing video is of the beating given to Robinson (warning this video is violent and graphic), by an individual identified as Daejhanae Jackson. This video starts with Robinson saying “ok”, but lacks the context to what she was agreeing. What follows is a violent beating of a naked Robinson by Jackson. The individual doing the filming of this video has also been attributed to Khali Cooke. It is clear from the video that there is at least one other person in the room watching the beatdown.
The initial medical report prepared by Dr. Karolina Beatriz Ornelas Gutiérrez, of the American Medical Center, allegedly declares the reported cause of death for Shanquella Robinson (aka Quella) as having died of a cardiac arrest caused by too much alcohol. The medical report shows repeated attempts made by Doctor Ornelas Gutiérrez to perform CPR over the course of more than two hours.
The traveling companions contacted Robinson’s mother and told her that her daughter wasn’t feeling well. She had alcohol poisoning,’ Salamandra Robinson (Shanquella’s mother) told multiple media outlets. She continued how she was told, “They couldn’t get a pulse. Each one of the people that was there with her was telling different stories.”
None of them spoke of the beatdown allegedly given to Robinson by Daejhanae Jackson.
The story shared with Robinson’s family by her traveling companions and the story which was told to the police when they arrived to find Robinson’s dead body in Villa Linda 32 located within the Cabo Villas property located just north of Puerto Los Cabo may have been designed to allow the six individuals to leave Mexico. If that was the case it seemed to have worked, as it was only when the autopsy was performed some time later that the state prosecutor noted the discrepancy between the initial police report and the certificate of death (see below.)
It should be noted that the police report consists of what is told to the police officers reporting to the scene and the initial observations of those officers. It contains no forensic evidence and by no means is considered final. As in many cases, discrepancies exist and are normally addressed in the ongoing and continuing investigation.
This story told to the officers did not align with the autopsy conducted on Robinson which showed cause of death to be a broken spine and atlas luxation. The certificate (see to the left) indicated that these injuries would have caused death within 15 mins of having taken place.
What this isn’t is a case of Mexico being a dangerous place. This crime, could have occurred at any location.
The Mexican state prosecutor (equivalent of an Attorney General) has filed charges “for the crime of femicide.” The Mexican authorities have requested the extradition of one Daejhanae Jackson, who is accused of being the individual who beat Robinson to death.
The state prosecutor said in his statement, “The victim and a group of 6 friends arrived in San José del Cabo on October 28, coming from the United States, to vacation in a villa in that town, with the fatal result that one of the friends apparently caused to the detriment of the young woman.” The prosecutor continued that “López Rodríguez indicated that after obtaining the injunction issued by a Control Judge against the accused, the leading procedures are carried out with the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), so that the extradition procedures of the accused for the crime of femicide are carried out.” And concluded with the notation that a separate investigation by “State Attorney General’s Office (PGJE) of Baja California Sur, maintains the investigations for everything that results, such as participation in a cover-up or any omission that has been made to avoid the damage that was being caused to the victim.”
The US investigation
Statement from Charlotte FBI: “The FBI Charlotte Field Office has opened an investigation in the death of Charlotte resident, Shanquella Robinson in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on or about October 29, 2022. Due to the ongoing investigation, we have no further comment.”
Securely Travel Advice for Travelers
Know your companions: This four day/three night excursion to a luxury villa by seven individuals just doesn’t come together over night. The motive remains to be determine, to say one must know who you are traveling with is an understatement. It would appear that she knew these individuals and that this wasn’t their first foray or group activity (and probably were considered trusted friends by Robinson). From what little has publicly been made available she was a free spirited, fun loving individual heading into a three-night quick getaway to Cabo.
The fact that her mother has stated her companions have engaged in major league dissembling of their stories and none of the stories match, speaks to the probability that there is still much to be learned about the death of Shanquella Robinson, and that the while Daejhanae Jackson is accused of the beating, what we don’t know is was there additional violence which was not videoed, why did the individuals in the room act as if they were witnessing a “match” fight and not an assault?
Travel with a trusted friend, is our advice.
When witnessing an attack: If and when you witness an attack, such as the beating of Shanquella Robinson and acting as if you are at a sporting event and videotaping instead of stepping in and stopping the violence, is unacceptable and from our vantage equal to and fully condoning the violence.
From the preliminary information, this may have very well been the case with Shanquella Robinson, her traveling companions may have been planning this act of violence long before their arrival in Mexico. This will be something for investigators to determine, and based on the recent three minute Facebook Live by Nazeer Wiggins, we’re going to be served multiple stories (as reported by Shanquella’s mother) as the six try to distance themselves from the death of their traveling companion.
Wiggins in his rambling and semi-coherent monologue, claims to have arrived a day late to the Villa, but the hotel registration shows that he signed the registration form, albeit last, and no annotation to his having arrived on the 29th (the date of the attack) is made. This discrepancy may or may not be of import and is something to be cleared up by investigators.
Mexico is Mexico – discrepancies and an apparent cover up: When in any foreign country, travelers may find themselves in situations where they need help but don’t know how to obtain help. We don’t know when or if Shanquella Robinson felt the danger she found herself. Nor do we know at this time if she reached out for help.
While unknowns exist surrounding Robinson’s death, we take this opportunity to suggest to all travelers that you know how to summon aid in an emergency and not make the assumption that it is just like home. Rarely is that the case.
What we do know about this case is it appears that when help was summoned by members of the group that a bit of collusion may have occurred to hide the truth. This implication of possible corruption does nothing to help Mexico’s reputation and the PJGE follow-up to sort out the situation is of import. The question lingers, did the attending medical personnel, together with the six traveling companions appear to have created a story surrounding Shanquella Robinson’s death, which they fed to the responding police officers?
The medical professional in their preliminary report makes no reference to the broken spine, but goes into great detail on how she attempted CPR multiple times prior to declaring Robinson dead. One must ask, who benefits from minimizing the death of a tourist, a death which apparently was a violent death?
- The six travelers, who were scheduled to depart in two days (31 October) would benefit from the death of Shanquella Robinson to be categorized as a tragic accidental death brought on by excessive alcohol. If such was the strategy, it worked. They all were able to leave Mexico unencumbered by local authorities desire to detain, and carrying only their knowledge that their companion was killed and they knew more than they were sharing.
- The company which rented the unit to the group is conspicuously absent in any of the coverage. They would have been involved, especially given they had a death in one of their units. Clearly, it is in the interest from a PR perspective to minimize any the blowback on their establishment, even though by all accounts the attack wasn’t something that they were in position to prevent, as it appears to happened within the confines of a rented unit, and by those individuals who rented the unit.
It was fortunate that an autopsy was conducted.
CBS News piece on the murder of Shanquella Robinson
Metropolmx.com
For those who wish to dig deeper and read the perspective from the excellent Mexican investigative reporting by Metropolimx.com, here are two of their most recent pieces: FBI abre investigación sobre feminicidio de Quella Robinson en Los Cabos and Ordenan arresto de homicida material de Shanquella Robinson
Authors:
Christopher Burgess is a writer, speaker and commentator on global security issues. He has appeared on CNN, BBC, I24, China News, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, and ABC providing commentary and analysis. He is a former Senior Security Advisor to Cisco and served 30+ years within the CIA. He has lived and traveled abroad for more than 55 years. He is the founder of Securely Travel.
Barbara Schluetter is an experienced traveler, having lived and traveled abroad for more than 20 years. She has resided in Germany, Canada, and the United States with her family of six children and a spouse who was a German Luftwaffe officer. She brings to Securely Travel her unique perspective honed over many years of travel both domestic and international
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