GUILTY PA - Christina Sankey, 37, autistic, Philadelphia, 6 March 2014

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Christina Sankey
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Philadelphia Police Search For Missing Endangered Woman -

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) –
Philadelphia Police are asking for your help finding an endangered woman that has been missing since Thursday afternoon. Philadelphia Police say at about 2:30 p.m., 29-year-old Christina Sankey was with her care giver shopping at Macy’s department store at 1300 Market Street. While inside the store, Sankey was separated from her care giver and wandered off. The care giver alerted security and notified police.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/03/06/philadelphia-police-search-for-missing-endangered-woman/
 
She's smack dab in the middle of Center City and could be anywhere by now.

I used to work in the Wanamaker Building (where the Macy's is now located) and am very familiar with it. The store itself is 3 floors and then there are several floors of different business above that. She wouldn't have been able to gain access to the office floors as there are two banks of elevators each staffed with at least one security guard and you need to swipe in at their desk.

On the ground floor of the building there is access to an underground walkway that connects you to either the broad street line/Suburban Station or the El and Regional Rails/Market East Station.

Sadly, that underground area is a haven for the homeless and if she was wondering down there, I know this sounds bad, but she may be easily overlooked by passerbys.
 

Sadly, this was Christina.

Police have identified a body discovered in West Philadelphia as that of a missing special needs woman.

The body was discovered at 6:30 a.m. Friday lying between two parked cars in the 1400 block of North 57th Street.

The deceased woman was later identified as 29-year-old Christina Sankey of the 1900 block of Ellsworth Street.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9458000
 
Thank God someone cared enough to write that article. Ever since she was found I've practically haunted the Philly media web sites for news about her cause of death, how she ended up where she did, etc.

I feel so sad that she was alone and probably froze to death, not understanding what was happening.
 
This breaks my heart!!!!! She was disabled, poor and Black! If she had been a thin, blue-eyed blonde her death would have gotten more attention. And no I'm not racist against whites...I'm white!!
 
I hope there will be an investigation. Christina deserves more.
 
Heartbreaking. How many layers of bureaucracy are going to fail this family? RIP Christina, and I'm so very sorry that nobody will be held accountable for what happened to you and your family.
 
Update to the story about Christina that was posted last week.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140416_Rage_and_-_finally_-_action.html

Most heartbreaking is that there were at least two times when Christina might've been rescued, if only people had known she was in trouble.

The first happened the day she went missing, a caller told me after reading my piece.

"I am sure I saw Christina," said the man, who asked that I not identify him in this column.


Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140416_Rage_and_-_finally_-_action.html#z8ZucdjfFx1gHM0e.99
 
I've added Christina Sankey to the memorial.

31282_original.jpg

Name: Christina Sankey
Died: March 6, 2014
Age at death: 37
Cause of death: Unknown
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Details:
Christina Sankey lived with her mother. She was severely autistic and severely intellectually disabled, and her favorite activity was rolling a ball. She liked to watch old Westerns, and she was very fond of her morning coffee.

When she was last seen, she was on a shopping trip to Macy's with a caregiver. Security camera footage shows her going down an escalator--and then, nothing.

Christina's body was found early the next morning, lying between cars parked in the street. She was partially undressed.

It would seem to be a simple case of a severely autistic woman getting separated from her caretaker, wandering away, and removing her own clothing as hypothermia set in. But Patricia, Christina's mother, doesn't believe that's the case: The circumstances under which Christina was found, she says, were not consistent with the severity of her disability.

Christina was found five miles away from where she was last seen, and her mother believes she would not have walked so far; she was uncoordinated and not athletic. Nor could she have used public transport, since she did not know how to ride a bus. She should not have been shopping in Macy's to begin with--learning to shop was not a part of Christina's care plan, since she did not have the potential to learn shopping skills.

Patricia also doesn't think that her daughter's lack of a shirt was due to paradoxical undressing from hypothermia. Her reasoning is simple: Christina did not know how to take off her shirt. Fingers numb from the cold, confused and frightened, Christina would have been in no state to suddenly learn how to undress herself.

But very little has yet been done in the investigation of Christina's death; no one knows what happened after she was separated from her caregiver. "No one cares about my daughter," says her mother Patricia. "She was poor, she was disabled... but she was my world."

References:
Missing autistic woman found dead in West Phila.
The death no one cares about

I honestly think there's much more to this story than we're seeing. If you've read what her mother said about Christina and her abilities, it seems very likely to me that after she was separated from her caregiver, someone took advantage. If someone who is not capable of walking five miles and taking off her shirt, is found five miles away with her shirt off, then there's something more going on than just a tragic accident. She may indeed have died from the cold--but what happened before that?

What I would want to ask the coroner is: Were there blisters on her feet? Anyone who does not habitually walk long distances would get blistered feet from walking five miles, even in comfortable shoes.
 
I hope there will be an investigation. Christina deserves more.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and the Philly homicide detectives will investigate the disappearance.

The D.A.'s interest was welcome news to Sankey's newly retained attorney, Tom Kline.

"It's encouraging that the district attorney and Philadelphia police are going to investigate this in the serious fashion it deserves," said Kline, who is preparing a civil suit on behalf of Christina's mother, Patricia Sankey.

http://articles.philly.com/2014-04-17/news/49188436_1_disabled-child-caretaker-hipaa
 
This is the first time I've heard that her body was covered with two garbage can lids. How sad.
 
Not just sad--it doesn't add up.

The current idea they have is paradoxical undressing due to hypothermia. If someone undresses themselves because they are suffering from severe hypothermia, they don't then go on to try to cover themselves up with garbage can lids.

This implies one of two possibilities:
Christina's mother is wrong about her ability to undress herself, and Christina managed to take off her own shirt. At that point, someone saw her, half-dressed and dying, and instead of helping her, covered her up with garbage can lids.

Or else, Christina did not take off her own shirt. Someone else took it off her. And at some point, she tried to keep warm or preserve her modesty by covering herself with those garbage can lids.

She either did or didn't put those garbage can lids on herself. If she did, somebody at some point took her shirt. If she didn't, somebody saw her either dying or dead and didn't help her.

To me, this says foul play.
 

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