Cause of death of young female sailor found dead near US Navy base remains undetermined after 4 months

Virginia, Aug 28 The cause of death of a young female sailor who disappeared from her Virginia Navy and was found dead days later, has been released.

The Virginia Department of Health’s Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to PEOPLE that it has ruled that 21-year-old Angelina Petra Resendiz’s cause and manner of death as undetermined.

Resendiz’s body was found by the NCIS on June nine, in an off-base wooded area in Norfolk several days after she was last seen on May 29.
The Norfolk Medical Examiner’s Office verified on June 10, that her body was positively identified. In response to the medical examiner’s report, Resendiz’s family said in a statement to local media channels that Cause of death of young female sailor found dead near US Navy base remains undetermined after four months.

They understood “why this conclusion was reached” given the “condition of her body”. They further said that they would continue to search for answers, and have started a GoFundMe to fund their efforts.

“… This does not change the fact that Angie lost her life and was found in a wooded area under circumstances
that remain deeply troubling,” her family said.

“Closure cannot come until the truth is revealed, and accountability will take place until the circumstances are
fully explained. We cannot accept this as the end of the story,” they added.

In July, a Department of the Navy memo detailing Resendiz’s final hours was made public, showing that she
was last seen around 10 a.m. on May 29, at the barracks of an unnamed sailor during a wellness check on
another service member.

Per the memo, Resendiz was on “authorized liberty” on May 29, meaning she had “no assigned duties” on the
ship that day and was “not required to muster with her chain of command”. She was expected to check in for
duty at 7:30 a.m. on the following day but did not report, the memo said.

This resulted in a wellness check being conducted on both her room and the room of the other sailor, but
“neither Sailor was located,” according to the timeline of events provided by the Navy. The other sailor’s name
has not yet been released.

Marshall Griffin, an attorney who represents Resendiz’s mother Esmeralda Castle, told local media that a man
named Jermiah Copeland was detained or confined “on suspicion” in the case following an initial review officer’s
hearing at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake.

Griffin told the local media that Copeland would remain in pretrial confinement and charges were not known at
the time.

A spokesperson for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE last
month that a Navy sailor had been placed in “pretrial confinement” in connection with the case.”

Source: UNI News

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