The mother of one of two models who were discovered dead in downtown Los Angeles in the span of a week said she’s been contacted by other loved ones who fear there could be a serial predator out there.
“As a parent, you never want to go through this,” said Sharon Coats, the mother of 32-year-old Nichole “Nikki” Coats.
She and her family are desperately searching for answers after her daughter was found dead in her high-rise apartment by concerned family members on Sept. 10.
An aunt who was among those to make the gruesome discovery said they could not recognize Coats and that her bed was bloodied.
“I believe it was murder, I really do,” the aunt said.
Authorities, however, have not revealed anything about Coats’ cause and manner of death.
Two days after Coats’ body was found, 31-year-old Maleesa Mooney, who was a model and a real estate agent, was found dead in her luxury apartment in Bunker Hill.
It remains unclear how Mooney died, but the Los Angeles Department confirmed the case is being investigated as a homicide.
While the two cases may just sound coincidental, some fear there’s cause to sound an alarm.
“In this case, unfortunately, it looks like they met in their own apartment, so, obviously, that leads me to believe that it was somebody they trusted to allow them into their home, and then the worst happened,” Moses Castillo, a retired LAPD detective said.
He added that young models are often preyed upon.
“They want to present themselves like ‘look, with your looks and my brains, we can make lots of money,’ and make all these promises, but once they’re there, they get sexually exploited, they get forced into doing things that they don’t want to,” Castillo said.
Ultimately these families are hoping for answers and want others to come forward if their daughters also died in a mysterious way.
“I’m going to keep at this until I find out what happened,” Sharon Coats said. “You don’t know who else has experienced the same thing that I have and maybe this will help, I know it will.”