A 31-year-old influencer from New Jersey died last week during a dream birthday vacation in Zanzibar with her fiancé, who had proposed less than a week earlier.
Ashly Robinson, better known as Ashlee Jenae online, was found dead on April 9, shortly after warning her parents that the trip with her much-older partner was turning sour, ABC 7 reported.
Robinson’s beau, 45-year-old Joe McCann, proposed just two days before her birthday. The pair had been dating for one year, Robinson’s parents told the outlet.
The influencer documented her trip on social media and called her parents frequently — until she went radio silent on April 8.
During their final phone call, Robinson told her parents that she and McCann had an argument that was so bad that the hotel staff decided to place them in separate rooms.
The next day, McCann called Robinson’s parents and vaguely explained that she “did something to herself.”
When Robinson’s mother pressed for answers, McCann said she was in stable condition, and noted that she was injured in an unspecified incident 11 hours before he called them, the outlet reported.
Robinson died later that day. Her cause of death was listed as cerebral hypoxia by strangulation and suffocation, the outlet reported.
A hospital medical report obtained by the outlet revealed that Robinson had an unidentifiable mark around her neck. McCann additionally claimed that he “found [Robinson] hung herself on the door,” the report said.
Robinson’s family, though, are refusing to accept the purported suicide until they are given clear answers from authorities, hotel staff, and McCann himself.
“She’s never done anything that would ever ever lead me to believe that she would do something to harm herself like that. She was happy,” Robinson’s distraught mother told the outlet.
Zanzibar police told BBC that McCann was being questioned only as a witness and is not suspected of any wrongdoing, though his passport is being “withheld” for the time being.
Thousands of Robinson’s adoring fans left tributes on her social media pages.
Robinson’s final post, shared on her birthday, captured her lounging on a porch decorated with rose petals spelling out “HBD ASHLEE.”
“Chapter 31 and I’m exactly where i need to be,” she wrote in the caption.
