[SIZE=7]Florida protester Oluwatoyin Salau, 19, found dead in Tallahassee after going missing[/SIZE]
Nada Hassanein
Tallahassee Democrat
A 19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist from Florida has been found dead one week after she went missing.
Tallahassee police found the bodies of Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, along with 75-year-old Victoria Sims, on Saturday. Their deaths are being investigated as homicides.
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Police arrested a suspect, Aaron Glee, 49, the Tallahassee Police Department said.
Salau was last seen on June 6. Earlier that day, she’d tweeted that she was sexually assaulted. Her friend Chynna Carney confirmed the Twitter account belonged to Salau.
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The tweets said that Salau had left some belongings at a church where she was seeking shelter and a man who’d offered her a ride to recollect the items later molested her while she tried to sleep. It’s unclear whether Glee is the same man Salau reported had molested her. CNN has reached out to Tallahassee Police to confirm Salau’s account of sexual assault and is waiting to hear back. Sims was a longtime AARP volunteer. Her family declined to comment on her death.
Salau had been Carney’s friend since before high school, she said. The 19-year-old taught herself to sew, paint and design her own clothes.
“She had so many dreams and she never gave up,” Carney said. But she’d endured a tremendous amount of pain, too; Carney described her as a sad person with the “happiest soul.” And she was always a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“When she started protesting with us, that was the happiest I’ve ever seen her,” Carney said.
Footage of Salau speaking at a protest in honor of Tony McDade, a trans man who was killed by Tallahassee police last month, has quickly traveled since her death. In the clip, she says he doesn’t want to divide people, but unite them against police brutality committed against black Americans.
“At the end of the day, I cannot take my fg skin color off," Salau says in the clip. "Everywhere I fg go, I am profiled whether I like it or not… So guess what? I’m gonna die by it. I’m going to die by my fg skin. You cannot take my fg blackness away from me.”
Her passion endeared her to Alina Amador, a photographer who frequently recruited Salau to model for her.
“Her beauty was so radiant, and modeling for her was so effortless,” she said. “She was very calm and gentle.”
Carney said her friend’s death has motivated her to fight for black women like Toyin.
“I will never stop protesting,” Carney said. “I will fight for her and for black people and people of color 'til I’m dead.”
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Salau, who was homeless, posted a disturbing tweet about a man who sexually assaulted her the day she disappeared.
She wrote to Twitter: "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 went on to describe her attack in a Twitter thread.
"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. When we arrived at his house he offered me a shower and I thanked him and shower and he gave me a change of clothes. He exposed himself to me by peeing with the bathroom open obviously knowing I was out of it. I told him about a sexual assault situation that happened…
“All of my belongings my phone my clothes shoes are all assumably at the church where I’ve been trying to track since I sought spiritual guidance/ refuge. I will not be silent.”
According to the statement, a suspect has been taken into custody:
Aaron Glee Jr., 49, who lives near where Salau’s body was found, has not been charged at this time with a crime.
It is unclear if Glee is the same person Salau alleged assaulted her.
WFSU reports that Glee was arrested on a battery charge on June 9, and on an aggravated battery charge on May 30.
Police said Monday that 49-year-old Aaron Glee Jr., the suspect in this case, has been taken into custody. He has not yet been charged.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11870636/missing-black-lives-matter-activist-identified-murder-victim/