Outrage as 19-year-old Nigerian activist Toyin Salau is found dead in U.S days after reporting sexual assault
A 19-year-old Nigerian-American Black Lives Matter activist in Florida, United States, Toyin Salau, has reportedly been found dead in Tallahassee, days after she went missing.
Toyin was reported missing on June 6, 2020, hours after sharing a series of disturbing tweets about how she was sexually molested by a man who offered her a ride to church in the town.
Several tweets examined on Twitter by Neusroom on Monday morning suggest that she has been found dead but no major news media is reporting it yet. Her friends and people across the world have been trending hashtag #JusticeForToyin to demand probe into her disappearance and prosecution of her killer.
Police is yet to confirm multiple reports on the internet claiming she has been found missing. The Tallahassee Police Department had issued a gazette on June 9 declaring Toyin missing.
Police say she “was last seen on June 6, 2020, in the area of Orange Avenue and Wahnish Way in Tallahassee. She may be in the area of Jakes and Patterson Street. There is no known clothing description for Salau at this time.”
For days, there was a police and community search to find Toyin.
The Tallahassee Police Department in a statement on its Facebook page on Sunday, however, revealed that it found two dead people while investigating the case of a missing person.
“At approximately 9:15 pm Saturday night, June 13th, TPD investigators arrived in 2100 block of Monday Road in the course of a follow up investigation in a missing person case. During the course of the investigation, two deceased people were located in the area.” the statement read.
“As the investigation continued, investigators developed a suspect. The suspect is now in custody and no more information is available at this time.”
The police did not state if Toyin was one of the two deceased people found.
Videos circulating on social media show Toyin was actively involved in the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping across the U.S and other parts of Europe against extrajudicial killings of black people.
In one of the videos, she could be heard condemning the discrimination and unjust abuse black people in the U.S are subjected to everyday.
On the day she went missing, Toyin had taken to Twitter to share disturbing tweets about a man who molested her in Tallahassee.
“Anyways I was molested in Tallahassee, Florida by a black man this morning at 5:30 on Richview and Park Ave. The man offered to give me a ride to find someplace to sleep and recollect my belongings from a church I refuged to a couple days back to escape unjust living conditions,” she wrote.
She added: “He came disguised as a man of God and ended up picking me up from nearby Saxon Street. I entered his truck only because I carry anything to defend myself not even a phone (which is currently at the church) and I have poor vision. I trusted the Holy Spirit to keep me safe.
She narrated that when they arrived at the man’s house he offered her a shower and also gave her a change of clothes. “He exposed himself to me by peeing with the bathroom open obviously knowing I was out of it,” she tweeted.
In one of the tweets, Toyin also gave a description of her alleged abuser, she wrote “Mid 40’s lives in a gray painted duplex apartment style house drives a white clean Silverado Chevrolet truck.”
Toyin’s death has sparked a new wave of outrage and protests on social media. Coming amid ongoing protests over the killings of blacks in the United States.
Her brother Oluwaseyi Salau and her friend Gabrielle Amanda have created a GoFundMe page to raise $10,000 for her mother Victoria Salau.
On the GoFundMe page, Amanda wrote “All donations will now go to the family for expenses and assistance they need in the grieving process, via Toyin’s brother as the beneficiary of this fund.”
As at the time of filing this report, $10,325 has been raised, surpassing the $10,000 goal.
Her family is yet to react to reports of her death. When Neusroom checked the Facebook pages of her mother and others she listed as her family members on her page, there are no posts about Toyin’s disappearance and death.
Toyin, a Cosmetologist, was born on August 27, 2000. In one of her tweets seen by Neusroom, she declared herself as a lesbian. “To clear any confusion, I’m 98% lesbian the other 2 percent well lol I just thought it was funny how this was in a span of a week,” she tweeted on May 22, 2019.
