In a heart-wrenching search for truth, the family of a New Jersey woman is seeking answers surrounding her untimely death on the island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The international spotlight has turned to the mysterious circumstances facing the loved ones of Ashly Robinson, as they navigate the opaque responses from Tanzanian officials and her fiancé.
“My daughter Ashly is no longer with us,” expressed Yolanda Denise Endres, Robinson’s mother, as she grapples with the lack of clarity surrounding the tragic event. The questions left unanswered have only deepened the family’s sorrow.
Her father, Harry Robinson, shared the emotional turmoil that has engulfed their lives. “Uncertainty. Mystery. Anger. Sadness. It’s like a part of me has been taken,” he lamented, highlighting the profound impact of his daughter’s sudden passing.
Ashly Robinson, who was widely recognized online as Ashlee Jenae, had ventured to Zanzibar to celebrate her 31st birthday on April 5. The trip was a significant milestone, as her boyfriend of one year had proposed just two days before the incident, marking a new beginning in her life.
“She was starting the next chapter of her life,” Endres recalled, noting how her daughter had shared the joyous moments of her travels and vacation through FaceTime. The family now clings to these memories as they seek desperately to understand the events that led to her demise.
“She was starting the next chapter of her life. She called us to FaceTime us to share with us her travel and her vacation,” Endres said.
Less than a week later, she was dead. Her mother said Robinson called on April 8 to say she and her fiancé had argued and were moved to separate rooms.
The next day, Endres said she received a call from the fiancé.
“He told me that Ashly did something to herself and she was being taken to the hospital, and he told me she was stable,” Endres said. “I said what happened, and he told me, it had been 11 hours prior.”
Hours later, the hotel where the couple was staying notified the family that Robinson had died.
According to a hospital medical report, Robinson had an unidentified mark around her neck. The report states that her fiancé “found she hung herself on the door.”
“Sometimes Joe went back to the room with security, and that’s how they found her,” said the woman’s father.
Robinson was later taken to a second hospital, which listed her cause of death as cerebral hypoxia by strangulation and suffocation.
“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,” Endres said.
The family says they have contacted police, the consulate, and the embassy, but have not received additional information beyond confirmation that the death remains under investigation. They have also requested surveillance footage from the resort.
“She was loved. She was not just going to be discarded and forgotten about,” Endres said.
The family says they are considering traveling to Zanzibar to seek answers. Attempts to contact Robinson’s fiancé, the resort and the embassy were unsuccessful.
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