Photo: Ashlee Jenae/Instagram
An American citizen is being held by police in Africa amid the death of his influencer fiancée that took place days after their engagement and a dispute at the hotel they were staying in, the Associated Press reports.
Joseph Isaac McCann, 45, was questioned by police on Monday (April 13), after Ashly Robinson, who gained a large following online under the name Ashlee Jenae, was found dead in her room. Zuberi Chembera, the Deputy Director of Investigations in Zanzibar, wouldn't provide a public comment on Thursday (April 16) as investigations were ongoing.
Police said the couple arrived at Zuri Hotel on April 4 and had frequently been quarreling until the night of April 8, at which point they were separated by hotel management and McCann asked to be moved to a separate villa about a 10-minute walk away from the room they originally shared. A hotel worker found Robinson unresponsive in a closet with a belt around her neck a few hours later.
Robinson was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead the next day. The influencer's family told CBS News that McCann notified them that she was in the hospital but details were limited.
"They were in a gorgeous place in Africa and happy," said Yolanda Endres, Robinson's mother. "Everything that we knew was that she was supposed to be happy. She was engaged, she celebrated her birthday thereafter, and then she's just gone."
"I asked him when it happened and where it happened, and he told me that something had occurred 11 hours prior to when he was reaching out to me," Endres added while addressing her conversation with McCann.
Endres said communication then stopped and the family was then informed by the hotel that their daughter had died in the next update.
"The fiancé did not reach out to us at all. We found out from the hotel," said Harry Robinson, Ashley's father. "That's devastating when your daughter's halfway around the world. We just wanted to know where she was at, who she was with, and that she was OK. Just give us something."
The State department confirmed it was monitoring the ongoing case. A GoFundMe launched by Robinson's father has exceeded its initial goal of $50,000.