A community in Huntsville, Alabama, wants answers after the body of a Black woman was found dead inside a police van parked outside the law enforcement offices.
The body of Christina Nance, 29, was discovered by a police officer walking to the parking lot at around 9.15 am on Thursday outside the Huntsville Public Safety Complex. The police said that the van was last used in March to transport evidence approved for destruction from cleared cases.
Madison County Coroner’s Office found no evidence of foul play or trauma, but an autopsy and a toxicology analysis could provide further information surrounding her cause of death.
Her family, who are desperately seeking answers, are asking to see the security camera footage. Investigators are currently reviewing surveillance video to try to determine when she entered the van.
Nance had reportedly been missing for two weeks.
“We do not believe that our sister would just randomly walk to a van and climb in it. First of all, why wasn’t the van locked on police property?” the deceased victim’s sister, Whitney Nance, told ABC31. “She was in the van the entire time and nobody knew. Not even the police department knew,” the sister said.
Whitney says that her sister had been to the police department numerous times to ask for help and called her family members to pick her up.
According to WHNT, Nance had been arrested on several times non-violent violations over the last eight years, most frequently for disorderly conduct.
“We really don’t know how our relative’s body was found inside a police van on police property and we need some justice,” Frank Matthews, a local activist and Christina’s cousin, said at a press conference. “We need some clarity and Christina cannot speak for herself.”