EXCLUSIVE – The mom of one of many girls allegedly raped at a Bahamas resort stated she knew “one thing was not fairly proper” about two hours earlier than her daughter despatched a textual content that stopped her coronary heart.
“Name us now we’ve been drugged and raped,” Dongayla Dobson texted her mother, Frankie King, who spoke to Fox Information Digital in an unique interview.
“They had been on a dwell video that they only posted or one thing. They had been like falling in all places,” King stated. “They do not drink quite a bit, however I’ve seen each of these women drunk. I knew there was one thing else happening. Like one thing’s not fairly proper, however I could not put my finger on it.”
That was round 9:30 to 10 a.m. Feb. 1, the day her daughter and finest pal since fourth grade, Amber Shearer, had been allegedly drugged with a laced cocktail and attacked. Two hours later, King obtained the bone-chilling textual content.
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“It is a mother or father’s worst nightmare,” King stated. “Your youngster is in bother, in peril and scared, they usually’re 300, 500 miles away, or no matter, throughout the water, and I am unable to get to them.”
A resort housekeeper discovered Shearer and Dobson unconscious in a rest room of the Pirate’s Cove resort on Grand Bahama Island, King stated.
A nurse practioner helped saved the ladies’s lives, documented their accidents and has been checking up on them day by day since their return to their house in Kentucky, the doting mother stated.
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However service was shoddy. It was troublesome for King, her spouse and their son-in-law to totally perceive what was occurring or after they had been returning to the port in Jacksonville. And each girls have kids between the ages of 4 and 17.
All of them waited over 24 hours earlier than the survivors had been reunited with their households.
“I by no means imagined how traumatized they really had been till I noticed them on the airport,” King stated. “It was like they had been kids once more. They got here working into me and jumped on me. I imply, they virtually knocked me down.
“All the things got here out abruptly. We’re all simply completely bawling. We stood there for I do not know the way lengthy. They would not let go, and we’re simply rubbing their backs and saying, ‘I’ve acquired you. You are protected now.'”
Each girls, who’ve been pals for the reason that fourth grade, come from humble backgrounds. They saved cash since March to take this “once-in-a-lifetime lady’s journey,” King stated.
A few sips into what the ladies allege had been drug-laced cocktails, and one of the best trip of their lives was a combat for survival. They stated they misplaced consciousness, and that is after they had been allegedly sexually assaulted.
“I vaguely keep in mind glimpses of his face,” Dobson informed “Good Morning America” Thursday. “I do not keep in mind every little thing. I keep in mind sufficient that he was a employees employee, he had a goatee and he was an area.”
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Their toxicology outcomes got here again with a mix of drugs of their programs.
The Royal Bahama Police Drive stated in a Feb. 4 assertion it arrested two males — ages 54 and 40 — within the alleged sexual assault. Their names weren’t launched.
Unaware of the State Division’s late January journey advisory to the Bahamas, the survivors took to social media to warn different girls in regards to the nightmare that that they had been by way of.
“That was their largest factor after they began posting,” King stated. “They needed folks to remember that it is a harmful place as a result of they felt like that they had no person. We did not know something about this journey warning. Nobody stated something to us.”
There have been plenty of encouraging and uplifting responses that supported the ladies, in accordance with King, together with individuals who shared their very own horror experiences.
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However others hid behind anonymity and responded with probably the most nauseating, venomous remarks.
“There have been a pair specifically that I keep in mind,” King stated. “One stated like, ‘When you hadn’t been in these bikinis, possibly it would not have occurred.’ They had been on a seaside, and it was 90 levels. OK, positive.
“After which one other man stated, ‘Properly, if I might been there, I might’ve achieved the identical factor.’ Some stated, ‘They acquired what deserved.’ No one deserves that. No one asks for that.”
The wretched responses, claims they’re faking and threats reached their youngsters, which prompted the ladies to close down their social media accounts.
They’re all along with Dobson’s husband and their youngsters, making an attempt to get by way of the psychological trauma and navigate the expensive medical bills, together with HIV prevention.
“My daughter is afraid for her husband to depart,” King stated. “We’re all supporting one another. I began the GoFundMe to attempt to get them some assist and help. I have been a nurse for 30 years, however clearly the women aren’t working, and proper now my son-in-law is spending all this time with my daughter, so he isn’t working proper now.
“And, you realize, a gallon of milk is like six bucks now, so it is, it is onerous. Insurance coverage covers solely a lot, and I nonetheless should pay my payments. So, I can solely help them a lot. However the monetary help is only a small a part of it.
“The largest factor that we’re engaged on is emotional help. If you nonetheless have to remain in the identical room together with your finest pal since you’re afraid of being separated.”
WATCH FRANKIE KING’S FULL INTERVIEW
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The resort, Pirate’s Cove, stated in a press release the ladies’s allegations of drug-laced cocktails and sexual assaults “battle” with its 16 “time-stamped surveillance movies.”
These “prolonged movies of all involved” had been handed over to native police, and the FBI confirmed it is also a part of the investigation.
“I have not seen all of the movies, however what we did see is of various girls,” in accordance with King, who stated she’s extra targeted on making her daughter and “adopted” daughter entire once more. “I do know my daughter, and what I noticed. That wasn’t her.”
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The resort’s assertion goes on to say it took “swift” motion by firing two resort workers for violating resort coverage.
“Now we have a zero-tolerance coverage for fraternizing with company or behaving in a fashion that’s unsafe,” the resort’s assertion says.
“We remorse that our company skilled this incident, and we stay steadfast in our dedication to assist police within the assortment of proof in response to those allegations, together with offering police entry to video the place the assault of the 2 company allegedly occurred.”
Because the resort fights the ladies’s allegations with its personal assertion, the USA Division of State and the Bahamian authorities exchanged slicing barbs over the division’s level-two journey advisory warning due to rising ranges of crime.
“The vast majority of crime happens on New Windfall (Nassau) and Grand Bahama (Freeport) islands,” in accordance with the State Department’s late January warning, which talked about spikes in violent crimes like armed robberies and sexual assaults due to gang exercise.
Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis got here out swinging by saying many tourism places share the identical stage two designation.
“The incidents described within the January 2024 U.S. Embassy crime alert don’t mirror basic security in The Bahamas, a depend of sixteen vacationer locations and lots of extra islands,” Davis stated Jan. 29, 5 days after the U.S. warning.
He stated the Bahamian authorities “is alert, attentive and proactive to make sure that The Bahamas stays a protected and welcoming vacation spot.”
Almost all the Bahamian financial system is at stake in terms of tourism, which accounts for roughly 70% of the nation’s gross home product and employs simply over half of the workforce, in accordance with an October 2022 report by the International Trade Administration.
The Bahamas was on observe to welcome over 7 million American vacationers by the top of 2023, in accordance with the state division’s most recent Investment Climate Statement, which was launched in 2023.
Fox Information Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
Unique article supply: Mom of American in Bahamas sex attack says daughter texted, ‘We’ve been raped’
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