Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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 her 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?
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Chapter 2: What led to Shanquilla Robinson's tragic death in Mexico?
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 that's attached to the villa.
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.
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Chapter 3: What were the initial claims about Shanquilla's cause of death?
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?
Yeah. 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.
Chapter 4: How did conflicting reports raise questions about the truth?
Court docs say that he's with one of the women from the trip, too, named Dejanay 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. Shanquilla'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 Shanquela'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.
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Chapter 5: What shocking evidence surfaced after Shanquilla's death?
And after this video leaks, every one of the group, known as the Cabo Six, goes radio silent on the family.
Even Kalil?
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 U.S.
They can't bring them back unless the U.S. basically hands them over.
OK, so hand them over for more questioning. What are we doing here?
Well, I mean, I think the U.S. authorities want to make sure everything's on the up and up before they just hand over citizens. So it's 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 investigating.
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 Shanquilla's final hours. According to FBI documents, the fight in that video happened at the villa between 7 and 7.30 that morning. And Shanquilla 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? Yes.
So they get the time, that like 7 to 7.30 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.
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