A 19-year-old Florida protester of Nigerian origin was found dead over the weekend — after vanishing the same day she tweeted about being sexually assaulted, police said Monday.
The body of Oluwatoyin Salau, who took part in Black Lives Matter protests in Tallahassee, was discovered late Saturday as officers investigated a missing person’s case, Tallahassee police said.
A second woman, Victoria Sims, 75, who had also been reported missing, was found dead nearby.
Aaron Glee Jr., 49, has been arrested in connection to the slayings, but police did not elaborate on any alleged relationship between him and the women, New York Post reports.
“There is no further information to release at this time,” Tallahassee police said in a statement.
A message seeking additional comment from police Monday was not immediately returned.
Glee, who lives on Monday Road — where Salau’s body was found, was taken into custody on May 30 on a charge of aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability.
Neither Salau nor Sims was the victim in that case, according to court records cited by the Tallahassee Democrat.
A woman told cops she was drinking with Glee when he propositioned her for sex and assaulted her when she declined his offer, police said.
Glee was later arrested on a battery charge on June 9, three days after Salau was reported missing. Police reports in that incident were not immediately available, according to the newspaper.
Salau, who was also known as Toyin, had been reportedly active at protests in Tallahassee, where she recited the names of black people recently killed by police, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Tony McDade in Tallahassee in May.
“I don’t want their names gone in vain,” Salau said during a demonstration outside the Tallahassee Police Department last month.
“Toyin was very passionate,” friend Danaya Hemphill told the newspaper. “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.”
Hemphill, 22, last saw Salau one day before she vanished and expected the worst, she said.
“I had a feeling that we were not going to find Toyin alive,” Hemphill told the newspaper.
Salau, who was discovered a few miles from where she was last seen at a library, detailed an alleged sexual assault on the day she disappeared, WTXL reported.
“Anyways I was molested in Tallahassee, Florida by a black man this morning at 5:30 on Richview and Park Ave,” she tweeted.
“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.”
Sims, who was reported missing Thursday, was a retired state worker who spent her career in local Democratic politics, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. She also worked as a volunteer for AARP Florida, WTXL reported.
