Tragedy
January 9, 2021
On the night of January 9th, 2021, I was found lying outside of town, alone, UNDER a bridge, unresponsive, PRIOR to being hit by a vehicle.
My boyfriend, Nick Coronado, whom my family has since learned has a documented history of domestic violence toward two other women, is the last known person who saw me alive. He claims to have dropped me off at a certain location, but the time he claims to have dropped me off in comparison to the time in which I was ran over make it impossible for me to have walked to that location on my own. Also, I was found on a road just a few miles from his home. I died two days before my son's birthday and I had previously made plans for it with my family. It is also very possible that my boyfriend wasn't alone.
My family has worked tirelessly compiling pertinent information which was provided to the investigator. Despite this, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Homicide Division is not currently actively investigating my death and are not responding to my family's basic inquiries.
UPDATE:
Initially, during the family's investigation of Skye's death, we were cautious about what information that we shared publicly. We are now at a point here we feel that we can share a little more without jeopardizing her case.
For this reason, we are now comfortable with providing the name of the last person known to have seen Skye alive on the night of her death on January 9, 2021 and have updated the above text to include his name.
We also feel that it is important to share that during the one in-person visit with the OHP investigator on March 16th, 2021, the OHP investigator alleges that he spoke with said boyfriend who claimed that Skye was never at the boyfriend's house.
A few days after Skye's death, her personal belongings were returned to us, one of which was her personal cell phone which she had in her possession the night she died.
We were shocked that the investigating Trooper did not find her death questionable and thus released her phone without reviewing Skye's cell phone activity that night.
We ourselves reviewed, printed off, and organized all concerning texts and messages, including Skye's own messages indicating that she was at the boyfriend's house that night.
During the in-person visit with the OHP investigating Trooper on March 16, 2021, we provided the Trooper with a binder of various information, including Skye's messages which contradict Nick's claims and verbally informed the Trooper of this concern and others.
Despite this, after months of ignoring our inquiry to the OHP investigating Trooper of whether he got to review the information we provided to him and ignoring our requests for a status update on Skye's case, it was only after we were able to contact his Supervisor that the investigating Trooper finally called us on October 11, 2021 and informed us that Skye's case was closed.
During that call, when asked again if the investigating Trooper reviewed the information provided to him, he failed to answer. When asked why Skye's case was closed, his response again was "There is nothing to investigate". As of January 12, 2022 we have not received any type of official written notice that Skye's case is closed.
Failure to consider the possible importance of looking into Skye's phone during the initial assessment of her death MAY have provided a small window of leeway to use the excuse "There's nothing to investigate" however, after being provided information that contradicts the boyfriend's claims and still failing to recognize the importance of it makes the excuse "There's nothing to investigate" invalid and unacceptable.
Here in Oklahoma, due to the MMIW crisis, there has been the establishment of the MMIW Liason's Office within the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation; however, we have learned that the OSBI is not above other law enforcement agencies. It's purpose is to assist other law enforcement agencies with investigations only when the other agencies request OSBI's assistance. Therefore, we've also been told that the OSBI's MMIW Liason's Office can only assist if asked.
We have heard comments throughout our journey insinuating that the OHP is underfunded and short staffed and therefore possibly lacks the time and manpower to effectively investigate cases.
We want to point out that we have been told that the OSBI's MMIW Liason's Office cannot work on Skye's case because OHP did not request their assistance. Lack of manpower and/or time is not a justifiable excuse when the OHP Trooper has the option to request OSBI's assistance but not request help with Skye's case.
Furthermore, after the Trooper had stopped responding to our inquiries in May of 2021, it was discovered that the "investigating" Trooper himself had publicly posted a racist meme. The meme depicted two police officers standing in front of a house. The caption above the police offers read "Are you all celebrating Thanksgiving in there?" and also depicted a black person standing at the front door of that house looking out toward the two police officers. The caption above the black person read "No we're just looting and rioting".
This bold and comfortable display by the "investigating" Trooper speaks volumes about his capability and tendency to racially stereotype the black community. This, combined with his seeming refusal to review relevant information that we provided to him and his refusal to respond to our inquiries, leads us to believe that he is also capable of stereotyping and being indifferent to a young Native woman who was found lying under a bridge, unresponsive, in the middle of night in the middle of winter - as if it is an expected every day occurrence. The investigating Trooper and the boyfriend are both white.
If the boyfriend has nothing to hide, why claim Skye was never at his home?
While we can't release details, we can say that Skye's death was NOT ruled as a suicide.
We should also note that all information gathered has been provided to others so any attempts at silencing us will not work. If anything, it would probably only bring the attention needed to this case.
