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Courtney Coco graduated from ASH in 2003, she loved her family and loved animals: A beautiful young lady, but she was also smoking pot, dating thugs, and that kind of behavior might have caught up with her in the end.
At 19 years old Courtney was trying to turn her life around, reading Christian books—she was living on her own, and working in a dentist’s office.
In early October of 2004 she was found dead in a town called Winnie, Texas. Here’s the abandoned building where the Courtney’s body was dumped, half naked and mangled.
Her car was found some time later in Houston- the green Pontiac had changed hands, possibly a few times, and was being driven around by some black teenagers.
A coroner came out and said the cause of Courtney’s death was asphyxiation but never put that in writing on his report.
For a long time, Texas officials and Alexandria Police went back and forth about who should investigate, who had jurisdiction—Was Courtney killed in Alexandria and dropped in Texas or was she actually killed in Texas? APD detectives ended up taking the case, they turned up a few persons of interest, but they never made any break throughs and one detective, Detective Cedrick Green was even taken off the case by Chief Coutee at the request of the family.
For News Channel 5’s Cold Case Series, Courtney’s relatives want us to publicize 6 irregularities, call them 6 tidbits, that might be solid leads.
(SOME OF THIS COPY DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE VIDEO VERSION OF THIS STORY)
Courtney’s Coco’s car keys were not in her car when it was found. In fact, her mother found those keys in a coat pocket in Courtney’s closet weeks after the murder. Also, Courtney’s sister says she found a broken key chain, a pair of dice, outside of Courtney’s house sometime after the murder. The key chain was obviously busted, so one theory the family wants fully investigated is that the murder started as an attempted car robbery.
The next fact is perhaps the most intriguing—an eerie connection to another unsolved murder. Courtney Coco was friends with a 20 year girl named Shamekka Garnette. The girls knew each other well—from class at NSU. They may have been getting mixed up with some of the same shady characters.
Shamekka was strangled to death two months before Courtney’s murder. And nights before Shamekka’s murder, Courtney and Shamekka were possibly in the same house together—for what reason is unclear, and as of the time of this report, APD has not confirmed that, but are still investigating the link.
Courtney Coco had saved this newspaper clipping from when Shamekka turned up dead. Ironically, this clipping was found inside Courtney’s car.
Call this tidbit 3: The records from Courtney’s cell phone. There are some numbers called and incoming calls – centered around Houston Texas area codes. Courtney’s family says those numbers don’t make sense to them. Could the killer have used Courtney’s phone to make those calls? Also—days after Courtney’s body was found, a young boy in Houston was busted by law enforcement with her phone. How’d he get it? The family says follow the phone, dig into those mysterious calls.
4: The family wants to know whatever became of the DNA they were told was found on Courtney’s car? A spot of blood that wasn’t Courtney’s. Who’s blood is that? Who has been tested?
5: Courtney’s comforter was missing from her bedroom. So was the comfy bathrobe she always wore at night. If they were used to wrap up the body, where were those items ditched?
6: Three weeks before her murder, Courtney said someone killed her dog, Ivory, skinned it and left it in her driveway. What kind of sick person or for what reason would anyone brutalize Courtney’s pet? Is there a link to Courtney’s murder?
So many unanswered questions, so many headaches from law enforcement. Sitting at the kitchen table with all of this material, the family says they feel they’ve investigated harder than the cops have, and they want renewed pressure on APD to do its job.
COURTNEY’S GRANDMA JOINED US LIVE ON NIGHTSIDE: THAT INTERVIEW FOLLOWS THE STORY IN THE VIDEO PLAYER BOX.
A few points of clarification in response to this post.
“Thugs.” Meaning some of the people Courtney was involved with had criminal records, they were doing drugs, getting into trouble with the law on a regular basis.
A thug is defined as “hood: an aggressive and violent young criminal.”
This is not about black or white. Courtney had friends who were both.
Also—Det. Green wasn’t taken off the case because of his race. He was taken off the case because the family says they were upset about the way he communicated with them.
As of the time of this posting, News Channel 5 has requested an interview with Det. Green.
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why did the family want det.green off the case. the family said she was dating thugs,do they mean black guys? u know thugs can be black or white. i think det.green is a good det. to find out who killed their daughter it really don"t matter what color they are or do it?