New details: What really happened to Shanquella Robinson?

by ReShonda Tate, Defender

New information is coming to light in a case that has garnered attention nationwide. A police report says Shanquella Robinson was alive when medical help first arrived at the villa where she was staying with a group of people last month in Cabo, Mexico. A Charlotte newspaper obtained the report, which differs from details previously received from 25-year-old Robinson’s death certificate that said she died within 15 minutes of being injured. Instead, the police report excerpt shows a doctor from a local hospital was with Robinson and others in the house for close to three hours before she was pronounced dead.

Robinson is a Charlotte native who traveled to Cabo on Oct. 28 with a group of friends. She died a day later. The death certificate from Mexican authorities did not mention Robinson’s physical injuries, which family members have said existed on her body prior to her burial. Grave injuries to her back and neck were determined to be the cause of death after an autopsy by officials in Mexico. The police report says she also suffered cardiac arrest.

Since her death, and after a video of one of her friends fighting her went viral, the FBI and Mexican police authorities have launched investigations into how she died. The lack of conclusive evidence and conflicting explanations has led to her story going viral, invoking global outcry with countless people closely following Robinson’s death. The hashtag #JusticeForShanquella has been trending on Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. No arrests were reported have been made so far. Robinson’s family became suspicious of her friends’ claims that she died of alcohol poisoning when a Mexican autopsy report showed that her cause of death was “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation.” Atlas Luxation is a form of neck injury.

The Defender Network has a timeline of Robinson’s last hours.

Typically, missing and murdered Black women do not receive much attention.

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