Police fear a Kentucky student who was found on the floor of her dorm room with deep cuts and bruises and who had stopped breathing for 23 minutes may have been the victim of an attack, but she has no evidence to find out who did it.
Isabella Willingham, 21, was found unresponsive in her room at Glide-Crawford Residence Hall on the Asbury University campus on November 27 and was rushed to the hospital where she was placed in intensive care.
Initially, the Jessamine County Sheriff’s Office reportedly told her parents that she had likely injured herself when she fell from her bunk bed.
Paramedics said she stopped breathing, suffered deep cuts, swollen legs and had eight of her acrylic nails torn off.
“What happened to this young woman is 100 percent confusing. In one way or another, she is a victim like anyone else. We believe 100 percent that something happened; we just don’t know what,” Jessamine County Sheriff Kevin Grimes said. NBC News.
Isabella Willingham, 21, was found on the floor of her dormitory with deep cuts and bruises and had stopped breathing for 23 minutes on November 27.
Paramedics said she stopped breathing, suffered deep cuts, swollen legs and had her acrylic nails torn off.
Initially, the Jessamine County Sheriff’s Office reportedly told her parents that she had likely injured herself when she fell from her bunk bed.
“It was a dormitory. No blood. No damage. No madness in the room. If there is nothing in the room that indicates an assault took place, that suggests it may have happened elsewhere. We just don’t know.
He said investigators looked at security footage and spoke to other residents of the dorm, but no witnesses or leads came forward.
“The only thing that stood between us was that we didn’t find out about the injuries to his legs until probably five or six hours later.” I can say we were late as far as injuries go,” Grimes said.
Willingham’s family said a rape kit determined she was not sexually assaulted and toxicology tests “found nothing of concern.”
His father, Andy Willingham, did not believe the explanations provided by authorities and said Lex18: ‘There’s no way this could have been caused by anything other than someone doing something to him.’
Isabella’s family didn’t hear from her for hours after she returned to campus after Thanksgiving and they received a disturbing phone call.
“At 11 p.m. that evening, we get a call from the resident director of her dorm, and she tells us that Bella is in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room, that she was found unconscious on the floor of her room by her. roommate, said Andy.
The student spent two weeks recovering at the University of Kentucky Hospital while her father waited for Asbury to notify the student body of the potential threat.
However, he claims an email was not sent until more than a week after the incident.
“As a parent, I want to know if there is a possibility that someone coming into the school or campus is potentially dangerous,” he added.
Asbury University released a statement in December saying it was aware of the incident involving Isabella, but did not believe there was a threat to the campus.
Jessamine County Sheriff Kevin Grimes said he believed she was the victim of an attack, but had no evidence as to who the perpetrator was.
He said investigators looked at security footage and spoke to other residents in the Glide-Crawford residence hall dormitory (pictured), but no witnesses or leads came forward.
“It was probably a group of girls. I barely spoke to anyone. I knew about three people on campus. I never left my room,” she said. “I just feel like it was girls because I only knew girls.”
Her family spoke out against the sheriff’s office’s initial claims that Isabella’s injuries were caused by an accident and said it damaged her reputation.
The sheriff said someone in his office, who did not have authority to speak, made the comments. “I can tell you that someone spoke inappropriately about this,” Grimes said.
Isabella, who is no longer a student at Asbury, said she has no memory of what happened to her.
“It was probably a group of girls. I barely spoke to anyone. I knew about three people on campus. Like, I never left my room. I just feel like it was girls because I only knew girls,” she told NBC News.
“I want what happened to me to bring attention to the fact that Asbury needs more cameras on all of its exits and entrances.”