Hi, crime junkies.
I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
You guys, I think there is this low level hum of anxiety that almost all mothers live with.
And it truly never goes away.
What you worry about will change over the years, though the consequences never seem less severe.
Like when they're little, there's this fear of them falling or choking on something tiny that got left on the floor.
When they go off to school, you worry about them making friends or getting bullied.
Like my daughter is in preschool right now and there is this one girl in class who keeps saying that she is better than my daughter and some days joe comes home like really put down, i want to go full, mama bear.
I'm trying to keep my cool.
It's not really working.
But i know when she grows up i'm going to worry about her getting her heart broken.
When I'm not driving her everywhere I'm going to wonder where she is, who she's with, if she's safe.
And God help me when one day she wants to take a trip out of the country.
The regular human in me will be excited for her.
I know how much I like itch for those experiences, like stuff like that when I was young.
And I want her to have all of that.
But I'm also a crime junkie mom.
And that means in the back of my head, I am picturing the worst case scenario.
Something terrible happening to my daughter, but in a place a zillion miles away where I can't get to her.
A place where the rules and laws are totally foreign to me.
I don't speak the language and I have no connections or resources.
I can prepare for almost any scenario, but in that one, I would feel like my hands are tied.
And that is the nightmare scenario that one mother found herself in beginning in October of 2022, when her 25-year-old daughter went on a last-minute trip to Mexico with a group of kids from her college.
One minute, her daughter is calling her, telling her she's having this amazing time.
Like, phew, sigh of relief.
She's happy.
She's safe.
But then...
24 hours later, she's being told that her daughter is dead.
The story she hears is that she got too drunk, died of alcohol poisoning.
But that was not the full story.
Far from it.
And over the next few weeks, an anonymous call, a leaked video and conflicting ME reports call everything into question.
The people who know what happened that day are the ones who were there on that trip.
But they have never spoken out.
That is, until now.
Literally right as we were about to record this episode, someone who was on the trip got back to us.
And in his first ever media interview, he told us some things that have never been reported before.
And what he said might give us an answer to what I think so many people have been asking.
Not just what happened, but why.
This is the story of Shanquilla Robinson.
Salamandra Robinson spoke to her daughter Shanquilla that first night after she arrived in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico.
According to ABC News, she said everything seemed fine.
Her daughter and the group that she was with were having this fun night at the villa.
They had a private chef, a pool.
I mean, like, what more could you want?
Shanquilla sounded so happy.
So mom probably went to bed that night a little lighter, knowing that her daughter was okay.
But that would be the last night of good sleep that she got for a long time.
Because the very next day, October 29th, 2022, Salamandra got a scary call.
It was her daughter's best friend, Khalil Cook.
And he's telling her that Shanquilla drank way too much that first night and now she's sick with alcohol poisoning.
He says she's been like throwing up, she's dehydrated, she needs an IV.
But Khalil tells Salamandra that they can't take her to the emergency room because they don't have the money for it.
I'm sorry, get her to the hospital and figure the money stuff out later.
Yeah, and it's not all or nothing, he says.
Like, I guess there is a doctor that they have called who can at least like come to the villa.
Okay.
I don't know.
I just think the emergency bill at least the way they're saying it like sounds like it would be more expensive.
So whatever.
At least someone is coming.
And that's part of the reason why Khalil is calling, actually.
He needs to get, like, all of Shankwala's information for the doctor.
So Salamandra gives him her Social Security number and tells him everything else that he would need is in her purse.
And she spends the rest of the afternoon just like worried, waiting to hear from her daughter herself.
But as worried as she is, the way she's hearing it, I mean it sounds like maybe it's just like a bad hangover.
Like it's a weekend getaway.
It's a luxury villa with a group of college kids who, by the way, are down there for one of their birthdays.
So like they probably stayed up late at night.
They were like drinking, partying.
These things happen.
She just needs to hear her daughter's voice and she's going to feel better.
Around 6 p.m. that night, that call that she's been waiting for comes.
But it isn't her daughter on the phone.
It's Khalil again.
And what he tells her leaves her in utter shock.
Shankwala is dead.
He says that emergency medics did all they could to save her, but she ended up dying from the alcohol poisoning.
And it just doesn't make sense.
Like, how does she go from bad hangover to dead?
But there is nothing that Salamandra can do.
She is thousands of miles away in North Carolina.
She hasn't even heard from any kind of authority yet.
And who's she supposed to call?
I don't know how that call with Khalil ended, but I can only imagine the disorientation she felt when the line went dead.
Now, what she didn't know at the time was that Mexican authorities had already begun interviewing the friends that she was with to try and piece together what happened.
And what we know through FBI documents is that their stories seem to vary.
Some of them tell authorities that Shankwella was drinking and hit her head on the toilet.
Others say she fell in the pool.
I mean, didn't Khalil say she died of alcohol poisoning?
That's what he told Salamandra.
But I don't think they're saying like she hit her head and that's what caused her to die.
I think they're still saying the same thing.
I think the stories of her hitting her head are just them, like painting a picture of how drunk she was.
I mean, do they truly not realize what they're saying, though?
Like head injuries, can give you a lot of the same symptoms as alcohol poisoning, like vomiting, disorientation.
Listen.
I don't know what they're thinking or what their intentions were with these statements, but I can tell you this for sure
They were not telling authorities the whole story.
And all of this talk of a fall may have just been to cover up the truth of what happened.
But someone couldn't live with the lie.
Because within 24 hours, Salamandra gets another call.
This one from an unknown number.
And the person on the other end of the line.
Now they don't identify themselves, but they say that Shankwala didn't die from alcohol poisoning.
They tell her that there was a fight the morning Shankwala died, and then they hung up.
And Salamandra didn't recognize the voice.
No, but like, the family thinks it has to be one of the people who was on the trip or, at the very least, someone that this Cabo group was in communication with.
And this call, it sends Shankwila's family spiraling and they have even more questions.
So when Khalil is back in North Carolina.
Wait, they got to leave?
Yes.
Oh yeah, the next day, the whole group booked a flight home early.
But it's not like they're totally avoiding the family or anything, or at least some of them aren't.
According to an advocate for the family that we spoke to, one of the first things Khalil does when he's back in North Carolina is visit Salamandra.
Court docs say that he's with one of the women from the trip, too, named Dajanae Jackson.
She was actually the birthday girl that the trip was planned for.
Now when they go, the pair hands over Shanquilla's luggage.
They give their condolences and they make sure that they keep insisting that Shanquilla died from alcohol poisoning.
Like, they're harping on it so much that it feels weird to the family.
And does the family bring up the call?
Oh, yeah.
Shankwala's sister, Quilla Long, confronts them about it.
But Khalil and Dejanay are like, we don't know what you're talking about.
There was no fight.
And listen, Khalil is like one of her best friends, mind you.
So the family doesn't know what to think.
And he keeps coming back four days in a row, sometimes alone, sometimes with other friends from the trip.
And every time they all continue to deny that any fight happened.
In fact, Salamandra says that they cried with her and they talked to her about funeral plans and what they were going to wear.
Were the rest of them close with Shankbala?
Well, we know that they all went to the same college, Winston-Salem State University.
I know obviously, that Shanquilla was close with Khalil, but I also recently got confirmation that she knew the birthday girl, Dejanay.
Apparently, the two of them had even been on trips together before, but I don't think they were super close because Shanquilla wasn't originally invited to Cabo.
Court docs say that she was invited at the last minute after someone else dropped out.
So it's not like the family has close ties to the other five like they do Khalil.
Their word pretty much means nothing.
But Khalil had gone on family trips with them.
Like they do trust him.
So while they're suspicious, at that point they don't really have any choice but to kind of take everyone at their word.
At least until they get more info.
On November 10th, this is now 12 days after Shanquilla's death.
The family gets a call from Mexican authorities that turns their world upside down.
They say that Shanquela didn't die from alcohol poisoning.
There's actually no mention of alcohol poisoning at all in her autopsy report.
What they list as her manner of death makes no sense with any story that this group has been telling.
And that's when it becomes clear to Salamandra that everyone has been lying to her.
Shanquilla's manner of death is listed as violent and the ME says Shanquilla died from a severe spinal cord and neck injury.
Now, the ME finds that her neck wasn't totally broken, but it was dislocated enough to be fatal.
She also suffered brain swelling and there was a huge knot on her forehead, bruises on her body.
But the Emmy didn't note what they thought caused her injuries or anything.
I mean, I have a guess.
Salamandra does too.
And listen, if anyone was still trying to say that a fight never happened...
Just give it another week and you could call them a liar to their face.
Because, around November 15th, someone and we don't know who shares a video of this fight that everyone is saying did not happen.
And Britt, the video is awful.
Most places online just have a still image or a quick clip.
But this video is critical to this case.
And that is why the family advocate asked us to put it out, so people can see the truth of what happened to Shankwella.
And in this video, you're going to see Shanquilla is completely new.
She's in what looks like a bedroom inside their villa.
And Dejanay is standing across from her in her pajamas by the sliding glass door.
Now, it's clear that multiple other people are in this room.
I mean, you obviously have the person taking the video, but you also catch a glimpse of another person's hand holding a phone in the corner of the screen.
And one of the spectators eggs her on.
I'm going to play it now and we'll have it up on our social media and on our website for those that want to see it themselves.
Oh, my God.
She's like beating the living hell out of me.
Yeah.
And like.
It's just unrelenting.
And Shankwella isn't even able to even fight back or do anything to try to get away.
I know, listen, like blows don't sound the same as you expect them to without movie sound effects.
So if you are just listening or like you're not like watching right now, you really do need to watch.
But this video begins with Dejanay just like, lunging at Shanquilla and landing blow after blow to her head.
And at one point, she yanked Shanquilla to the ground by her neck.
And the whole time, you're saying she's not fighting back.
Shanquilla is like a rag doll.
It feels like she can't fight back.
Yeah, and she's like trying just to protect herself.
Well, someone casually tells her to at least fight back.
And like, what comes before and after this video?
Like, clearly, everyone is ready for this fight.
They've got their phones out.
They're set up like a studio audience.
But like you said, she's completely naked.
How did she end up that way?
Listen, the family has every single one of those questions and more.
But that is the entirety of the video that was put on the internet.
That is all they saw.
And after this video leaks, every one of the group known as the Cabo Six goes radio silent on the family.
Even Khalil?
Even him.
And so, in the absence of information, rumors start running wild online about what might have led to this fight and whether shanquilla might have been set up.
But there is nothing to prove any of the rumors are true, so it's up to authorities to try and figure out what happened.
Now mexican authorities kind of have their hands tied.
The cabo six are back in the us.
They can't bring them back unless the us basically hands them over.
Okay, so hand them over for more questioning.
What are we doing here?
Well, I mean, I think the US authorities want to make sure everything's on the up and up before they just hand over citizens.
So it's not like they're doing nothing.
Like the FBI in Charlotte steps in.
They announce that they're investigating.
While, at the same time, authorities in Mexico keep questioning people and building their case to potentially lead to an extradition request, because that hasn't like happened yet.
And here's what we learn about Shankwala's final hours.
According to FBI documents, the fight in that video happened at the villa between 7 and 730 that morning.
And Shankwala apparently went to her room afterward.
And do they have more video footage from other people's phones?
Are they just getting this from statements?
So they get the time that like 7 to 730 window from talking to someone who worked there who estimated the time based on where the sun was hitting, like the light was hitting in the room.
How they know she went to her room after, it doesn't say how they know that.
But after they say she goes to her room, there is this big gap of time where we don't know anything.
We don't know what people are doing, what happened.
The timeline really picks up just before noon.
And that's when someone some documents say it's friends, some say it's family, the housekeeper at the villa.
But someone finds Shanquilla on the bathroom floor in the villa, barely conscious.
But even though that happens just before noon, a doctor wasn't called until around 2 pm, about the same time Khalil made that call to Shanquilla's mom.
The doctor doesn't show up until about an hour later, so call it 3.15.
And by that point, Shankwella was on a couch in the living room.
The doctor could immediately tell that she was in really bad shape.
And the doctor told investigators that Shankwella was disheveled.
She had a knot on the right side of her forehead, broken blood vessels in her right eye and she could not get out any words.
Like she is only managing to make sounds.
And the doctor told everyone there that Shanquilla needed to get to a hospital, but they all refused.
How can they refuse, though?
They aren't her guardian.
She's an adult.
But remember, she can't speak, so she can't advocate for herself.
The only connection to her family is through her friends.
And the doctor said that they all seemed reluctant to even call her family and let them know what was going on.
And the doctor also said that her boss, the doctor's boss, told her that she had to get permission from the friends to take Shankwella to the hospital.
Like she wasn't allowed to make that call herself.
And according to the doctor, they keep saying that Shankwella was just dehydrated.
She needed an IV.
So according to the records, the doctor told police she tried to get them to call for help for at least an hour.
She even told them that there are hospitals that will take Shanquilla help Shanquilla for free, if money is the issue.
Which is what they said to her mom, that the funding was the issue.
Right.
It was only once Shanquilla had a seizure that someone finally called 911.
Then Shanquilla went into cardiopulmonary arrest, and emergency medics arrived about five minutes later.
The doctor, the emergency medics, they worked for an hour to stabilize her.
They gave her 14 rounds of CPR, five doses of adrenaline and they used a defibrillator on her six times.
But despite all of those life-saving efforts, Shanquilla was pronounced dead at the villa just before 6 pm, Though it's worth noting that, for some reason, Shanquilla's death certificate says that she died just 15 minutes after she was injured, which is a discrepancy I don't really understand, considering we know that she died hours after the doctor's arrival.
And listen from what the doctor told police at the scene.
Shanquilla's friends were acting strange the whole time.
She claimed that they would go off and like deliberate amongst themselves before giving her any answers to questions she was asking.
And only one of them stayed to help.
A concierge for the villa said something similar to Mexican authorities on November 17th.
He told them that he rushed to the villa that night when he heard what had happened.
And he said that the friends looked like pretty calm overall, except there was one woman who was visibly shaken and sad.
I don't know who that was, but it wasn't Desjardins, because she's called out specifically by this person, saying that she came off a little bit cold and indifferent.
But at no time does she or anyone in the group mention anything about this fight to police or anyone there.
Though at least one person there claims that he genuinely did not know about the fight.
We actually talked to one of the men who was on that trip.
We're going to call him Mike because he doesn't want to be named.
And Britt.
This is a huge deal because no one from this trip has ever spoken to the media, anonymous or not.
And according to Mike, he never even talked to police.
So what I'm about to say may even be news to them.
He told one of our reporters that he was the last to join the group in Mexico.
So he says that he got to the villa Saturday afternoon.
This is after they'd already called the doctor to look at Shanquela.
And he says when he got there, like she was vomiting, she was disoriented.
And he is the one who laid her on the couch and he is the one who stayed to help.
And at the time, he had no idea, he says, about the fight.
Like, none of the friends even told him.
So he spent hours helping to take care of Shanquilla, thinking that she really did just have alcohol poisoning, because that is what they are telling everyone.
And he says that he found out about the fight with the rest of the world when the video came out.
But he has more pieces to the puzzle that might fill in what led up to that fight.
Mike says that Desjardins actually called him at around 3 o'clock in the morning the night before the infamous fight video.
She was crying.
He said that everyone in the villa was drunk.
And Shankwella and Desjardins apparently had gotten into some kind of heated argument.
And in the midst of this, a glass broke, which cut Desjardins' foot.
It was accidental, but it did not help the situation.
So Mike says that Dejane was just beside herself and told him that she wanted Shanquilla to leave.
Like she doesn't even want her there for her birthday.
Now Mike says he managed to talk Dejane down and like let Shanquilla stay.
And that was the last that he heard about their spat.
But he suspects that that was the beginning of whatever the fight was that took place four and a half hours later.
Wait, so is Mike who called the family about the fight, like, anonymously?
No, he wasn't.
Remember, the call happens before the video.
He only learns about the fight through the video.
Got it.
Okay.
So he couldn't have been that person.
Right.
And he said that he was one of the friends to visit when they got back from Mexico, like visit the family.
And he did tell them everything he told us.
But he says like they were already suspicious that someone wasn't telling the full truth and they didn't really want to hear anything from him.
And did he tell the police?
No, like I said, like he hasn't wanted to talk to police at all.
But if some other stuff that he told us is true, stuff that we couldn't verify enough to report the answers police might be looking for, I think would be on people's phones and in their call logs, which I'm assuming they collected.
But even without that, Mexican authorities were still moving forward.
By the end of November.
This is now almost a month after Shanquela's death.
The prosecutor in Mexico over this jurisdiction announces that they've issued an arrest warrant for who we know from court docs is Dejanay.
He says in a statement that the woman in the video was the quote direct aggressor in the fight and they want to extradite her back to Mexico.
Are there any other charges for anyone else?
No, they say that this case is being investigated as a femicide.
And just so you know, in Mexico, femicide is when being a woman plays a part in why a person was killed, no matter the gender of the person who committed the murder.
And when this happens, this is at least something to her family.
The next logical step in the right direction.
But no arrest is made.
U.S. authorities aren't sending Desjardins or anyone back to Mexico.
And it's not like they can come get her.
And at the same time, it's not like the FBI has said no.
They're just saying nothing.
And I think that's because at that point, their investigation hadn't concluded.
So everyone's thinking like, OK, you know what?
They just need to wrap up and then they'll comply, right?
Yeah.
Well, weeks pass, then months, and this warrant seems to not go anywhere.
The family is even writing letters to the president at the time, begging for him to intervene.
And though the White House acknowledges that they're following the case, they don't do much to push it forward.
It's in the hands of the FBI, sorry.
And it turns out there might be a reason the FBI hasn't made any arrests.
There's something that the family has been in the dark on.
Completely unbeknownst to them, the FBI had done a second autopsy and their results were wildly different.
In April 2023, almost six months after Shanquilla's death, The FBI and the U.S.
Attorney's Office announced that they won't be pursuing federal charges in Shankwella's death.
They say the evidence in the case doesn't support prosecution.
And they specifically mentioned a second autopsy, one that no one knew was being done.
But according to the ME, in that second autopsy, Shankwella's neck and spine are fine.
Like, her neck isn't dislocated at all.
The report says that Shanquela had brain swelling, which was also listed in the first autopsy.
But this report says it's clear Shanquela's brain lacked oxygen for several hours.
And the second ME says in the report that Mexican authorities told him there was no alcohol in her system, which should feel shocking, right.
Everyone's saying alcohol poisoning.
Yeah.
But the second Emmy says that if she was drinking heavily, the 10 and a half hours between that morning and the time when she actually died was enough for the alcohol to work its way through her system.
And he says in the report that the knot on Shankwala's forehead is consistent with blunt force trauma.
And that could have led to the brain swelling and the damage that killed her.
But.
Couldn't that very well be blunt force trauma from the fight?
Maybe.
And like the Emmy acknowledges the fight and the video in his report.
But he also says that he doesn't know if maybe Shanquilla fell and like hit her head in the bathroom.
Is he saying that based on her injuries or is he just pulling that from, like the friend's statements?
He doesn't specify.
I think basically he's like, listen, she could have gotten a head injury from anywhere.
There's a head injury.
I can't tell you where it came from, so Which is why her cause of death ends up getting ruled undetermined?
But...
I'm confused.
Like how could one autopsy find a dislocated neck to like a fatal point and another say her neck is totally fine?
Like, it either is or is not dislocated to, again, a fatal level.
I know.
So according to the North Carolina autopsy results, Mexican officials only did a partial autopsy.
What's that?
I, too, was confused by what that meant.
So I we actually reached out to an expert and asked them to break it down.
Dr Joseph Filo, this forensic pathologist in Cleveland, says that a partial autopsy isn't very thorough and it doesn't require removing major organs like a full autopsy would.
And Dr Filo looked at both reports in the case and he said that the medical examiner in Mexico didn't even take out her spine.
So he says heavy drinking can cause some of the brain swelling that both autopsies found.
And that swelling wouldn't have been enough to kill Shankwella, but that, along with head trauma and lack of oxygen, could be deadly.
So the question is not if she suffered blunt force trauma, it's whether that blunt force trauma was caused by the fight or not.
Exactly.
Is it possible that the fight played a role in Shankwella's death?
Yes, but there's no way to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, according to Dr. Filo.
So he says the undetermined ruling makes sense.
We also talked to Beth Green, who worked as a federal and district prosecutor in North Carolina for more than a decade.
And Green says that prosecutors would have had a really hard time proving.
Shanquilla died from this fight without a medical examiner ruling a homicide.
And that's likely at least part of the reason why the FBI didn't pursue charges.
Now the family advocate told us that Shanquilla's family was in tears when they heard that there would be no charges, like just completely gutted.
And they felt totally blindsided by this.
I mean, even blindsided with the differences between the two autopsies.
Because the family thinks that both show that Shanquilla died a horrific death.
Both of them show blunt force trauma.
So...
With no other options.
In October 2024, Salamandra filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Cabo 6, the FBI, the State Department.
And the suit alleges that Desjardins attacked Shanquela and ultimately caused her death.
Then the whole group tried to cover it up.
I mean, based on what Mike told us, I could see Salamandra being right, but...
But he wasn't there for the piece of it.
I know.
Now her lawsuit claims that the State Department didn't move forward with extraditing Desjardins to Mexico to face prosecution.
And as for the FBI, the Robinsons claim that they withheld records about Shanquilla's case and basically shut the family out of the investigation.
So that's everything that goes forward.
In 2025, a federal judge dismisses part of the lawsuit, specifically the claims against the FBI and the State Department.
But as of this recording, the rest of it is still pending.
Did anyone respond to the lawsuit?
I know that all of the Cabo Six gave some kind of response throughout 2025.
They all denied every allegation against them in Salamandra's lawsuit.
Khalil and two of the other women on the trip all claimed that they were just bystanders and weren't involved in the fight.
And Dejane Jackson, who has since changed her name to Imani Green, finally gave her version of events in her response just this past July.
And this is big because this is the first time anyone got to hear from her about any of this.
She claims that she was acting in self-defense and that Shanquilla was quote belligerent and provoked the fight.
So she's at least admitting that there was a fight now.
I mean, you can't deny it.
There's a video of it.
Yeah, but there are still so many questions, especially after we talked to Mike.
Well and, in my opinion, self-defense is going to be hard to sell when we have, like you said, the video where she's not even fighting back and she's naked.
Yeah.
Totally.
And by the way, to me, her being naked in this video seems like a critical piece of the puzzle.
Like, why wasn't she dressed like Dejanay was when this is happening?
And we looked and like her family has said in the past that she usually slept in the nude.
So they think that she had to have been sleeping and Dejanay had to have woken her up to fight.
Which is like even less convincing when you think about self-defense.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Clearly, other people were awake.
Like, they're filming the fight.
So what was everyone doing between the fight at 7.30 and Chanquilla being found around noon?
I know.
That's not in any of the documentation.
And we know, right, Mike's saying he wasn't there yet, so he couldn't fill in the gaps for us.
But I do think that time is important.
Did everyone watch this fight and go to bed?
Did they go back to partying?
Mm-hmm.
To me, this goes back to who actually found her.
Was it the friends or was it the hotel staff?
Because those are two very different scenarios.
So where we're at now?
Shanquilla's family is urging US authorities to give this case another look.
They still want someone held accountable.
This past October, three years since Shanquilla's death, her family and supporters held a balloon release in Charlotte to honor her and to renew their call for justice.
They had yellow and pink balloons, which were Shanquilla's favorite colors.
And they remember her as this vibrant, passionate entrepreneur with an infectious laugh.
And the family says that she was a creative person who was passionate about the boutique that she owned and her hair braiding business.
And she had this gentle demeanor that made the children she worked with really love her.
Salamandra said at a press conference that the family can't rest until someone is held accountable for her daughter's death.
She said, quote, End quote.
So if you have any information about what happened to Shanquilla, you can reach out to the Charlotte FBI at 704-672-6100.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
Crime Junkie Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
I think Chuck would approve.
