Kyrie Irving is helping Shanquella Robinson’s family deal with the financial burden of funeral costs and legal fees as they fight for justice. A spokesperson for the Brooklyn Nets guard confirmed the GoFundMe donation late Friday (Nov. 18) evening to Yahoo.
“We face a tremendous unexpected financial burden and a great deal of pain as we prepare to lay my sister to rest,” Shanquella’s sister, Quilla Long, wrote on GoFundMe. At the time of this writing, the family has exceeded $300,000 in donations, including a $65,000 contribution from Irving.
As previously reported by REVOLT, Shanquella was found dead inside a rental property in Los Cabos, Mexico, on Oct. 29. The North Carolina native was there to celebrate her birthday with a group of people she believed to be her friends.
Members of the group claimed Shanquella was found unconscious after suffering from alcohol poisoning a day after her arrival. However, an autopsy revealed she suffered a broken neck and trauma to her back. Suspicions surrounding her death grew grimmer when cell phone footage emerged showing Shanquella and another woman involved in a physical altercation.
When speaking to TMZ, the 25-year-old’s father, Bernard Robinson, said the footage of the fight proves Shanquella was attacked.
“They attacked her…and she naked,” Bernard said in the interview posted Saturday (Nov. 19). He added that his daughter was not the type to pick a fight. “She’s not a fighter at all, ma’am. For them to do what they did, ma’am, it just seemed like it was a plot, ‘cause they couldn’t have done that over here, ma’am.”
Overcome with emotion, he continued: “They just put a hole in my heart. That was my only child. I’m just heartbroken, ma’am. You know, I can’t even be a grandaddy, can’t walk her down the aisle, can’t hear her voice, can’t hear her say daddy… Y’all just don’t know, y’all just don’t know what that has done to me.”
On Thursday (Nov. 17), the FBI officially launched an investigation into Shanquella’s untimely demise. The attorney general in Mexico has also declared her death a femicide, a form of a gender-based hate crime.
When it comes to justice, Bernard wants to see those responsible for his daughter’s death charged and punished accordingly.
Watch Bernard Robinson’s interview with TMZ below.