A 19-year-old Nigerian-American Black Lives Matter activist, Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, has been found dead days after tweeting about the painful experience of being sexually assaulted.
Salau went missing the very day she tweeted about her sexual assault on June 6. According to her tweet, she was assaulted sexually by a black man in his mid-forties.
The man, who presented himself to her as a “man of God”, the tweet said lives in “a gray painted duplex apartment style house drives a white clean Silverado Chevrolet truck”.
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He was helping to take her to get her things from a church and to find a place to sleep.
A week after being declared missing, the Tallahassee police found the bodies of Salau, along with 75-year-old Victoria Sims, on Saturday. Their deaths are being investigated as homicides. The cases had been sent to the Tallahassee Police Department’s Violent Crime Unit, ABC News reported.
Forty-nine years old suspect, Aaron Glee, has been arrested and he is yet to be charged. According to reports citing a spokesperson of the department, formal charges will be announced after investigations are concluded.
A native of Florida, Salau was active in the city’s Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, calling for justice for black people following the recent killing of George Floyd.
Last seen on June 6, her body was found about 3 miles from where she was last reportedly seen.
“I don’t want their names gone in vain,” Salau said during a protest in front of the Tallahassee Police Department last month, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
The 19-year-old was very vocal and passionate about equality in America, according to her friends.
“Toyin was very passionate,” said Danaya Hemphill, a friend of Salau’s. “She was very vocal she was very loving, very spiritual, very caring. Toyin she was like a light in a dark room. That was Toyin.”
“She had so many dreams and she never gave up,” another said, adding: “When she started protesting with us, that was the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”
“Her beauty was so radiant, and modeling for her was so effortless,” Alina Amador, a photographer who frequently recruited Salau to model for her said. “She was very calm and gentle.”
