Mexican authorities have filed charges against an American woman after a viral video showed another woman being beaten at a resort.
The Associated Press reported that prosecutors in Baja California Sur, a Mexican state on the country’s west coast, have approached federal prosecutors and diplomats to try to have the woman, who has not been named, extradited to face charges in Mexico.
Video showing the beating of Shanquella Robinson, a North Carolina woman who died on October 29, raised questions that one of the people she was traveling with in San José del Cabo could have killed her.
Antonio López Rodríguez, a local prosecutor, said authorities were treating the case as a possible homicide and had issued an arrest warrant for the suspect, but the people Robinson was traveling with left the country.
An autopsy showed that Robinson died of a severe spinal cord or neck injury, the AP reported. Some of Robinson’s friends had initially told her mother that she had died of alcohol poisoning, according to Charlotte-based ABC affiliate WSOC-TV.
Her death certificate said Robinson was found unconscious in a living room where she was staying and died 15 minutes after sustaining her injuries.
The video, which has been reposted on social media platforms, shows an American woman beating Robinson, and a man is recorded saying “Can you at least defend yourself?”
But the man did not appear to intervene as the beating took place.
The FBI confirmed that it launched an investigation into Robinson’s death earlier this week.
