Shanquella Robinson’s mother recalled the last phone call she had with her daughter, who told her she had arrived at the Mexico villa and was having “a good time.”
Robinson traveled to Mexico on Oct. 28, 2022, with six friends from her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.
“She said they were all having a good time, and I told her I’d talk to her tomorrow,” Shanquella’s mother, Sallamondra Robinson, told PEOPLE. “And I never spoke to my daughter again.”
But the next day, Sallamondra received devasting news from one of Shanquella’s friends, Khalil Cooke, who told her Shanquella had alcohol poisoning and needed to see a doctor.
Four hours later, he called, informing her that her daughter had passed, PEOPLE reported.
“I was just sick because I couldn’t get there,” Sallamondra says. “It made me sick to the stomach.”
Shanquella’s case has garnered national attention and resurfaced in the news after the United States Department of Justice announced on April 12 that it would not press charges against the “friends” involved in her death.
According to attorneys for the Robinson family, Mexico authorities say Shanquella died from a case of femicide — a gender-based murder and hate crime. She suffered from a broken neck and spine. She also had contusions to the “frontal region of her head, ” her hip bones, and a friction burn on her left ankle.
Following her death, a video surfaced of Shanquella, 25, being viciously beaten by a woman in what appears to be the villa they were staying in. Mexico authorities identified the woman beating Shanquella in the video as one of her travel companions and have since issued an arrest warrant for her.
In a press release, the DOJ said federal authorities conducted an autopsy on Shanquella in North Carolina. Based on the available evidence, which they say did not show a spinal injury, authorities “have concluded that federal charges cannot be pursued.”
“We’re disappointed, but we’re not deterred,” Robinson family attorney Sue-Ann Robinson (no relation) said during a press conference following the announcement. “It’s not something that’s unexpected. Black and Brown people have always had to carve their own path to justice, and we’ve been doing that since the beginning.”
