True Crime with Kendall Rae - Who Killed Influencer Alexis Sharkey?

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

This episode is sponsored by: Apostrophe - promo code: KENDALLRAE Reel - promo code: KENDALLRAE Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter I...nstagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - kendall@INFAgency.com

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Have you noticed that most ice cream is now common smaller cartons? Not blue bell. Blue bell takes pride in providing our customers with full half gallons and full points of our delicious ice cream. We would never want to deny any one of all the rich and creamy goodness found in every carton. Blue bell wouldn't have it any other way. Hey guys, look back to my channel. So today's case is very, very recent. I have been getting a lot of requests for it since it happened in November 2020, which by the way I do take requests if you didn't know. I have a case form, a suggestion form in
Starting point is 00:00:51 the description box, but anyway you guys have been asking me to cover this case for the last few months and there's finally enough information out now I think to cover it because the most recent development in this case is that it was ruled a homicide, which is huge. So now I feel like we can really sit down and start talking about it, looking at some of the details and watching this play out over the next year or longer. So keep in mind that new information is going to come out. This video is eventually going to be outdated and I'll have to probably do an update or something like that eventually. But today we were talking about Alexis Sharky. She was born Alexis Lee Robinult.
Starting point is 00:01:30 Sharky is her married name and she was born on January 25th 1994. She grew up in Northwestern Pennsylvania with her parents Michael and Stacey and her two younger sisters. And they are a very close family, very loving family. She was very happy and well-adjusted kid overall. Alexis is clearly absolutely stunning, but she's also a very smart girl with a very kind and generous soul and according to her family, everyone loved her.
Starting point is 00:01:55 Her family said that she seemed to be almost addicted to learning and had a very analytical mind. She was always up in her thoughts, she was a deep thinker, and she was also very motivated and committed. So her friends and family said that they had no doubt that she'd be successful in whatever she did. In high school, she played sports, she had a lot of friends, and she was also in the National Honor Society,
Starting point is 00:02:18 which I definitely was not in that. I don't even know what it was, but I remember it was a big deal and the smartest kids were in it. She then graduated in 2012 and went to the University of Pittsburgh to study biology, nutrition, and psychology. And she really enjoyed her time in school. She found what she was learning about to be very interesting, which helped her to succeed academically. And she actually was one of the top in her class when she graduated in 2016. Eventually her plan was to go to medical school,
Starting point is 00:02:45 but after college she decided that she had been working so hard that she just wanted some time off to travel, to relax a little bit, and take time for herself. And this all started with a big move to Texas, which was a huge fresh start for her, very different from Pittsburgh. Specifically, she moved to West Texas in a town called Odessa, and she worked at a Twin Peaks. If you haven't heard of Twin Peaks, it's very similar to a Hooters type restaurant. It's a sports bar where they wear sports bras. And she's clearly gorgeous, so she did very well there, and really enjoyed this. I actually have some friends that have worked at a Twin Peaks and really have liked their experiences, but I don't know if that's everywhere.
Starting point is 00:03:27 But for Alexis, it was a really fun job. She was able to be very social, which she really liked. She was able to make friends very naturally, very easily, and she made quite a few friends as soon as she moved to Texas. People around her said that they were attracted to her warmth and personal energy that she carried. She took her friendship seriously and was very committed and loyal friend. In summer of 2017, Alexis was engaged, but she ended up breaking it off. And some of her friends at Twin Peaks really helped her get through this difficult time. One in particular really helped her get over this guy and give her the confidence to date again eventually. At the time her and her ex-fiance were not doing so good. So I kind of stepped in, helped her get out of that. This friend noticed that Alexis was getting along with one of
Starting point is 00:04:17 their regular customers named Tom Sharky. One of our regulars who would come in, talk to us, make us laugh, they clicked, and just watching them click and they're laughing, they're smiling, and I was like, all right. So Tom works as a consultant in the oil field. I don't know exactly what he does. There's not a lot of information about him, but basically he traveled around the world for his job. And Alexis really liked that because she loved to travel, so she found him to be a very
Starting point is 00:04:44 interesting person. And he to be a very interesting person and he's clearly a very big guy. He's over six feet tall and he definitely looks like a bodybuilder. And also he was quite a bit older than Alexis. She was in her early 20s at the time. He was in his mid 40s. Also he had already been married, divorced
Starting point is 00:05:02 and he had two kids. So quite a lot for Alexis. But none of that seemed to matter to her. She was really, really into Tom. She said she fell in love with his heart. And like I said, they really bonded over traveling. Right around that time Alexis was feeling a little burnt out from working a lot at Twin Peaks.
Starting point is 00:05:18 She also had some other side jobs, and she was just working all the time. She was a big hustler. At some point, she realized that she was tired of trading her time for money and wanted to slow down. But Tom and her new that she couldn't really do that with the type of job that she had. And at the time, Alexis was using these hair care products from a company called Monate. Some of you may already know what Monate is, but if you don't, it is an MLM, meaning it's a multi-level marketing business. They recruit independent contractors to sell their products and recruit other people to sell their products,
Starting point is 00:05:54 which is really where you make the big bucks in an MLM, is by recruiting other people to be underneath you. Monet has also had three class action lawsuits that were filed against them for fraud and deception. So they're pretty sketchy. Most people refer to these companies as pyramid schemes, just because the people at the top make most and it just kind of works down and majority of people that work in MLMs or try to get an MLM business going, fail at it.
Starting point is 00:06:20 I did and I failed at it like in 2014. I tried Mary Kay. I lasted about two months, lost money. But that was not the experience that Alexis had at all. She made a lot with Monate and pretty quickly. She started selling her products to people that she knew, people online, and she'll start recruiting people to be underneath her. And she did very well with that. Within only a month, she quit her job and she's dedicated herself full time to being a Monet salesperson and an influencer. Mornings are coming on strong with dark and bold from community coffee. Bustaloo's come on! Bustaloo's come on! Get, get, get, get, get, get, get on up! Get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get on up! Get, get, get, get, get on up!
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Starting point is 00:07:30 Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy! Yeah! And this is the smell of that same sandwich in a hefty ultra-strong trash bag. Fenty, hefty, hefty! Ah, smell the difference. hefty ultra-strong has armen hammer with continuous odor control,
Starting point is 00:07:45 so no matter what's inside your trash. Hmm, you can stay one step ahead of Stinky. And for bigger jobs, try the superior strength of Hefty Large Black Bags. Eventually, she worked her way up to being Executive Director, which makes quite a bit, according to Monet's website. In 2017, their average monthly salary for executive directors was 34,000, which is over $400,000 a year. But as she started to roll in the money, she definitely started to really ramp up her influencer business as well. She was posting a lot of her
Starting point is 00:08:19 very perfect looking life. She posted videos of herself traveling to the Cayman Islands. Here's a blog that she posted from one of her Monet trips. It's called Monet Passport. And this was in Cancun. As you can see, she met a lot of friends just through being part of Monet, which I'm not sure if the company pays for all this or if they have to pay to go on this retreat. I don't really know how it works. I've heard mixed things with these MLM retreats, but this is a pretty common thing within MLMs. But as you can see, she was really living it up. She was making tons of money, had tons of friends, was living this very fabulous lifestyle, and she really started posting more on her social media. She had the whole Instagram theme. She was like, bullied being an influencer. Eventually, she had over 22,000 Instagram followers, which is pretty good size account. And she actually did not like to consider herself an influencer,
Starting point is 00:09:20 even though I keep using that word. She liked to refer to herself as a businesswoman, or a mentor. And a lot of her social media posts were about recruiting other people or convincing other people to join Monet. That's the whole thing with MLMs. A lot of the time you're not selling the products as much as you're selling the lifestyle
Starting point is 00:09:37 that you get if you work for an MLM. So oftentimes you'll see people who work in MLMs posting about how it gets them so much freedom and the ability to travel and they're making so much more money and they're their own business owners and they're a boss babe. So most of the time, Alexis worked just from her phone. Her phone was basically her office. She never went anywhere without it and she posted to her stories like every few hours.
Starting point is 00:10:01 A day rarely went by without Alexa's posting something. So during this time she continued to date Tom and things were going well. By the summer of 2019 her and Tom were engaged and they actually decided to relocate to where I live here in Colorado. Of course they did because everyone wants to move here. Can you guys stop? Please. You guys are raising our cost of living and is not fair. But it's beautiful here. I see why they wanted to come. So they moved here in August and lived here through the end of that year.
Starting point is 00:10:29 And they had a blast traveling all around Colorado, seeing all the natural landmarks and they documented a lot of this on YouTube. Here they are at Colorado National Monument, absolutely gorgeous area. And they look really happy. Tom is smiling. It's very scenic.
Starting point is 00:10:43 She's able to take a lot of pictures on these trips. Here they are at Black Canyon, which is another cool place in Gunnison, Colorado, and they're kissing. They're obviously very happy. These logs are pretty short, and this one they go to Garden of the Gods, which is another beautiful park here. And they're holding hands kissing. They look happy, right? But eventually they decided to move back to Texas, and before they did, they took a 25-day road trip together through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. And Alexis actually posted a vlog of this as well, and it really is the most in-depth look I feel like you get of their relationship. There's just a lot of footage of them, you know, being a little
Starting point is 00:11:20 more natural. Alexis had just gotten this really cute bangle cat that was traveling around with them. I mean, they just look like they're living the life. He looks like a big goofball, big teddy bear. There's a bunch of just beautiful shots in the vlog and it looks like Alexis is happy, but that's the thing with vlogging, right? You can look happy, but something completely different could be going on behind the scenes. There's really no way to know what someone's life is like beyond the lens. When bad things are happening, you don't vlog it. You don't share that kind of stuff. I mean, I guess some people do, but most people put a pretty perfect looking version of their life online,
Starting point is 00:11:58 especially a lot of these Instagram influencers who do try to make their life seem perfect. But in these vlogs, they look very happy and very much in love. And in December of 2019 they ended up getting married at a courthouse here in Colorado. And in early 2020 they moved back to Texas and settled down in Houston. At this time Alexis was 26 and Tom was 49. When Alexis first got down to Houston she wanted to make some new friends. So she joined this app called BumbleBFF, which some of you may be familiar with or have used the other version of Bumble, which is just a dating app,
Starting point is 00:12:30 but this is just to meet new friends. And this is how she meets a friend named Tanya Ricardo. Tanya was a divorce mom who was also looking for new friends at the time, and she invited Alexis to a dinner, and all of her other friends were there, and according to Tanya, everyone just loved her right away. They said Alexis was friendly and upbeat and seemed like she had a good heart. And then Alexis ended up introducing those girls to some of her friends from Monate, and they all got along really well, so they had this new group kind of formed. They were all really supportive of each other and hung out all the time, and they had this one group chat where they talked every day.
Starting point is 00:13:02 Now Alexis was always known as someone in the group chat who would respond normally first or was one of the first people to reply. And she always had her phone on her. But I guess one thing that they thought was a little strange is Alexis didn't talk that much about Tong around them. Sometimes he would come around and hang out with them and the other girls' boyfriends as well and he would be cool and chill about it, but most of the time Alexis didn't talk too much about him. And then the pandemic hit.
Starting point is 00:13:30 Corn team started and most of us, Alexis decided to join TikTok. This was just another place for her to grow her business, grow her brand, sell low-nate products, recruit new people, and the algorithm on TikTok is insane. It's pretty easy to amass a pretty big following very quickly. And it also allowed her to show a little bit more of her personality, her fun side, her real side,
Starting point is 00:13:54 to show her sense of humor. Sometimes you post funny videos, including her girlfriends, other fellow Monate sellers. So you'll just take it three times a day. Do you have any other questions? Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think my only question is terms of alcohol, definitely not.
Starting point is 00:14:13 No, no, yeah. I didn't think so, I just thought I'd ask. And my only other question is like, what would happen? It's so nice to finally meet a girl who's not crazy. These are my ladies. This is Jill. This is my lady Amy. Little Susie. Brianna. You know why we call a Brianna, right? Yeah, it's a long story. She introduced her bangle cats, and Tom was even featured in one of her TikTok videos. After she first introduced him, eventually Halloween came up,
Starting point is 00:14:50 and Alexis posted a TikTok of her and Tom dressed up as Vikings, and that brings us to November 2020, which is when I told you something terrible happened to Alexis. In the beginning half of the month, she actually went on a trip to Martha, Texas with a friend. After she was in Marfa, she actually went on a little trip to Tulum, Mexico with her friends, and Tom was not part of this trip.
Starting point is 00:15:15 And she even posted on her Instagram while she was there that she loved it so much. She decided she was gonna move down there, which I'm not sure how serious she was about that. She could have just been saying it. When she got back, she started making some holiday plans. Thanksgiving was coming up. And the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, she talked with her mom on phone because she was not gonna go home for Thanksgiving, and she hadn't been home in a long time. It had actually been about a year, since she had been back to Pennsylvania, so her mom really wanted her to come back for Christmas,
Starting point is 00:15:41 so they had planned that she would. And her mom also noted that it was a little strange that Alexis wasn't visiting more often. Normally she would visit as much as she could. She was very close with her family. So then it's Thursday, November 26th, 2020, Thanksgiving. And that morning Alexis and her mom texted a little bit back and forth just wishing each other a happy Thanksgiving, but they didn't talk on the phone because it was a busy day. Alexis stayed home that morning, and then that evening, she actually went and had dinner at Tanya's house for Thanksgiving, and did not bring Tom, which is kind of weird. Of course, couples can spend Thanksgiving apart. There's no rule that says you have to be with your significant other on Thanksgiving.
Starting point is 00:16:24 Maybe Thanksgiving didn't mean much to them, but it is a little strange, especially as a newly married couple, to not want to spend this holiday together. An Alexis was pretty into the holidays. And then around midnight, another friend picked her up and they went out to a bar and they stayed out until about 3 a.m. drinking. She texted Tanya to let her know that she was coming back to her house where she had just had Thanksgiving dinner because she'd loved a few things there, but Tanya was already asleep so she didn't see her text. So Alexis went by the house and apparently picked up her car and went home. So the next day is obviously Black Friday and if you're not familiar with Black Friday,
Starting point is 00:17:02 I'm sure pretty much everyone knows what that is, but it's a holiday here in America a holiday. It's a day that we have a bunch of sales and everyone goes insane and it's a big deal for brands and a big deal for people like Alexis who are in MLMs. People in Monet were starting their sales posts early that morning, like pretty much after Thanksgiving meal. But Alexis didn't post on social media at all, which was incredibly weird because normally she's telling all her recruits, you know, to post, post, post, post, driving home the message, especially on a day like Black Friday. And then around 5.30 a text came into their friend's group chat from Alexis, and she had asked what everyone was doing. She wanted to go out that night apparently but Tony responded and said that she couldn't go out because her mom was still in town from Thanksgiving but she was leaving in the morning and that the following day they should all get together and watch movies and just have
Starting point is 00:17:56 like a girl's day relax and pajamas because it was gonna be cold outside it was bad weather and Houston at the time so they agreed that that is what they would do and the last time that anyone heard from Alexis was that night between 6 and 6.30 pm in the group chat. And after this, she didn't post anything new on social media. She went the entire Black Friday without posting, which is incredibly weird. So then a few hours later, Tom texted this guy named John, who is one of Alexis's friends, boyfriend. And he asked John if they had heard from Alexis. And this is all over text, which is pretty weird to be texting about something like this. It's super serious. So John thinks it's weird, and he ends up calling Tom around 11 p.m. to talk to him about it.
Starting point is 00:18:38 And that's when Tom says that Alexis was missing. And not only that, according to Tom, he told him that he and Alexis got into an argument that night, and that she left. Their phone call was 45 minutes, and Tom apparently explained everything that had happened that night to him. But John thought the conversation was strange. To him, something just did not seem right. And later on, Tom ends up changing his story, and he does several times in fact. Eventually he says that they never got into an argument and he changed some of the other details as well. So it's really hard to keep track and put together a timeline of what has happened that night, especially with the little information that we have right now. But when Tom was on the call with John, he said that Alexis
Starting point is 00:19:20 stormed out of their house barefoot and he also said that she was wearing running shoes and sweats. He said the last he also said that she was wearing running shoes and sweats. He said to last he saw her, she had climbed over the fence at their house into a black car. But he also said that she may have just left on foot. So hard to know what actually happened. In one version, he said that she left her phone behind. In another version, she had her phone with her. And in that version, Tom said that he had used the Find My Friends app to track her around and that he followed her around. He literally said he followed her around in a black car until he lost cell phone service. After this, he said he pulled into a gas station to kind of regroup and figure out what was going on. He said he ended up
Starting point is 00:19:59 saying there are two hours trying to figure out what to do, but that's pretty much where his story ends. And after that, he started trying to call people to see if anyone else had heard from Alexis. But like I said, we have no idea what he actually did that night. We have no idea what really happened. This is the smell of the leftover tuna fish sandwich you left in your lunch box over the weekend in a wimpy trash bag. Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy! Blah!
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Starting point is 00:21:09 Fiver more, save a dollar each sale. Simply buy five or more participating items and save a dollar each with your card. Kruger, fresh for everyone. So next day is Saturday, November 28th. Tania is the first one on the group chat. And she texts everyone to let them know that the movie day is still on. After a little while, other people started chiming in once they woke up talking about
Starting point is 00:21:33 what movies they should watch, what their wearing, etc. But Alexis was an answering the group chat and this was really weird to them. Alexis always was on her phone, I mean it was literally like an extension of her body at some point. So they decided to check her social media and when they did, they realized that she hadn't posted anything in over 12 hours, which was very unlike her. This really freaked out the whole group. They still met up for the movie date, hoping that she would just show up, but she didn't. And that was a huge red flag to them also because Alexis never skipped out on plans without telling people
Starting point is 00:22:05 She was not like that. She wouldn't just not show up. She would give someone a heads up if she wasn't gonna be somewhere She said she would be so they called her Texeter over and over and over and her phone just kept going to voicemail and Alexis actually normally had her read receipts on So they could tell that these messages were being delivered to her phone But they didn't say red so they weren't being opened. They're probably just sitting there So then around 12 30 p.m Tania decided that she should just go over to Tom Alexis's apartment for herself and see if Alexis was there They have a ring doorbell, you know has the camera and sensors and she knocked and knocked at the door
Starting point is 00:22:41 But no one answered so she went outside to her car and Try to decide what to do. She really wanted to call Alexis's door, but no one answered. So she went outside to her car and tried to decide what to do. She really wanted to call Alexis's mom, but she felt like it would worry her and she didn't know if there was something for sure wrong, but eventually just got to the point where she realized something's definitely going on here and I need to tell her mom. And when she did call Stacy, Stacy had already been talking to Tom and knew everything. Tom had been spending most of that Saturday calling Alexis's friends, asking if anyone had seen her and talking with Stacy as well. And when he talked to these people,
Starting point is 00:23:11 he told a few of them about that argument that they had had. And as he talked to people, everyone kept confirming that no one had picked up Alexis, no one drove that black car. Alexis hadn't called anyone for a ride. Later that day, sometime before 9 p.m., her friends actually were the ones who decided to file a missing person's report with the police.
Starting point is 00:23:30 And after that was filed, they went ahead and contacted Tom. And right away, Stacey and Alexis's friends started posting on social media about Alexis trying to raise awareness that she was missing. They used hashtag justice for Lex and justice for Alexis. Here's a post from her mom. It says, please share this post. My daughter Alexis Sharkey is missing. No one is heard from her for over 24 hours and the police are involved. She has lived in Houston, Texas since January and that's where she was last seen. Please help us find her and bring her home safely. We
Starting point is 00:24:00 are so very desperate. Please share. And they included a description of her white Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, but it's not clear if that was missing too. But as they're posting and trying to spread awareness, what they didn't know is that a body had been found that morning, only three or four miles away from Alexis and Tom's apartment. This body was actually found by city workers.
Starting point is 00:24:21 And when they first rolled up on her, she was just placed kind of on the side of a road on interstate 10 about 17 miles west of downtown Houston and she was just laying there and she was described as being really clean she was naked and completely clean almost as if she had just gotten out of a bath and the way she was just kind of positioned on the ground was really odd so odd that the workers actually thought that she was a mannequin at first, which kind of reminds me of the black dolly at case. The driver who first saw the body didn't stop. He really thought it was a mannequin, but he had a weird feeling that he
Starting point is 00:24:54 should report it. So he ended up calling his supervisor and asked him to come check it out. The supervisor drove to the service road, located the body, and right away he just saw feet sticking out is what he had described, which made me think that she was like in a bush, but she was really just out. So as he got closer he realized this is a body and he calls 911. We was driving, we could see the feet, you know, so we got out and looked and there was, you know, she was laying there, uh, deceased, uh, she was no clothes on. And I just got on the phone and I called 911. So like I said, this body was found completely naked. They had no purse, no shoes, no phone, nothing with them. And
Starting point is 00:25:37 they believed that they had been left there overnight. And it literally just looked like someone had drove by and dumped her there, Almost as if they wanted the police to find her. It definitely didn't look like they tried to cover her up or anything. As of that Sunday morning, her family still did not know that that was Alexis' body, and they were still holding on hope that maybe she was alive because her phone was still on. But in the meantime, Tom had been brought in to identify this body and confirm that it was his wife, Alexis Sharkey, that had been found. Later in the day, they told her friends and family that she had been found, and all the posts switched to memorial posts.
Starting point is 00:26:17 Add new information this new now, a woman's body found this weekend identified as Alexis Robino. Her new body was found this weekend on the side of the road on Red Hall Lane in West Houston. Stacey also made this post, she said. It's with deeply broken hearts that Mike and I want to let you all know that Lexi's body has been found. We cannot begin to thank you for all your love and the kind words you've extended to our family. Please give us the time to grieve this incredible loss to our family and this world. We will miss you love. So I'm sure you're probably wondering if there was any sign of trauma on her body if there was any blood, but there was no sign of trauma and no visible wounds at all. So at first, the police weren't even referring to this as a murder investigation at all, but the
Starting point is 00:27:01 story started blowing up in the media right away, especially because she had this social media presence. People were curious. And as it really started going on the media, people started suggesting what could have happened. Since there were no signs of trauma, a lot of people thought that maybe she was poisoned or maybe she accidentally overdosed. Another theory though was that she could have been smothered because that wouldn't really leave any visible sign of trauma either. They interviewed her friends and her mom, and everyone seems positive that someone did this to her.
Starting point is 00:27:33 They also cleared up that she never did drugs, and it would be very unlikely for her to overdose. They said if it was an overdose situation of any kind, that someone must have forced it on her. I don't know what happened, but I do know it was not an accident. So I don't know what precipitated this. I don't know any, but I feel like I will win this all pants out. And I will be an advocate for it not to happen to anybody else.
Starting point is 00:27:57 Then things started coming out about her relationship with Tom. That friend who went with her to Martha, Texas started saying that on that trip, things were not going well with Tom Even though he wasn't there. This is all alleged. It comes from her friend. It's hearsay technically But she says that Alexis was talking about how bad their marriage was. Not only that She claims that Alexis told her that she was scared for her life But her friend wouldn't say anything more in the interview. I looked at her and I was like she's petrified. This girl is scared for her life.
Starting point is 00:28:30 Eventually it came out that Alexis was planning to divorce Tom. Friends have claimed that they had already split their bank accounts before she went missing and there were papers already drawn up just waiting to be signed. And knowing that information definitely changes things. And then it came out that during that trip to Tulum, Alexis was introduced to this guy named Sebastian, who is a Houston-based DJ. And I guess the two of them really hit it off. One of her friends claims that Alexis hooked up
Starting point is 00:28:58 with him during this time. Another friend that says that they didn't and that Alexis didn't want to cheat on Tom technically. So what happened with Seb is kind of unclear at this point, but it turns out that he was actually that friend that picked her up on Thanksgiving and brought her out to the bars until 3 a.m. and when it comes to this case there there's a lot of rumors online. It's really hard to clear all this up, but it seems that it could have been possible that Seb was kind of already dating
Starting point is 00:29:24 Alexis, like they were low-key together and that Tom may have been possible that Seb was kind of already dating Alexis. Like they were low-key together and that Tom may have even known about it and have been like somewhat okay with it because they were ending or he may have known about it and have been really pissed off. We have no idea who knew what or what was actually going on in these relationships. But one thing that her friends and family just could not shake with Tom is that his story kept changing. In some of his versions, you know, he's saying that she left in the black car, in the other version of things, he says that she left on foot, they can't figure out what actually even happened. Also, it just seemed very unlikely that she would do either of those
Starting point is 00:30:01 things because if she had left on foot, she likely would have walked to a friend's apartment and none of her friends lived anywhere near there where she could actually do that. If she decided to take an uber or get a ride she would have called someone she knew and they went through everybody and no one had heard from Alexis that night. Plus remember that day in Houston it was cold and dark and rainy so why would she just leave on foot? And if she did call our texts one for a ride, there would be proof of that on her phone. So Tom, I guess, has been cooperative according to the police with the investigation. And police, I guess, asked early on
Starting point is 00:30:36 that since this is a very social media heavy case, that they all try to limit what they post on social media. And then they also asked the public to look for any surveillance footage that they all try to limit what they post on social media. And then they also ask the public to look for any surveillance footage that they might have, you know, if they were living in this area, if there's anything even just footage of your street that day, that is helpful because they can possibly look for a specific car put together a timeline. And Alexis was found in a mostly secluded area on a small narrow road, which is surrounded by mostly fields. But there is one business nearby,
Starting point is 00:31:07 which is a beauty salon, and it did have a camera facing the ditch where she was dumped. So that footage is probably really important, but at this point, we have not seen it. Houston police are hanging onto that, has not been released to the public. Now, as far as Tom goes,
Starting point is 00:31:21 he has done one media interview, but it was not on camera, and there may be several reasons for that. And keep in mind, this was after Alexis' body was found. The reporter who did the interview said that it felt disjointed, and that Tom seemed very emotional. Obviously, since the beginning, people on social media have assumed that Tom was the one
Starting point is 00:31:41 who did it, and I understand why people feel that way, and he very well could have. But eventually it seemed to really start to get to him mentally. He told the reporter that he started receiving death threats. It was a strange conversation. He was very upset. He said that he had been talking to detectives, that he did everything in his power to find his wife, but he abruptly ended the conversation, hanging up on me in fact saying he did not want us to contact him again. And then in the interview, he also explains that Alexis was totally different when he was around her. And basically, Tom claimed that Alexis seemed really carefree, happy and
Starting point is 00:32:16 positive to everyone else. But to him, she acted completely different and was very upset and stressed out a lot of the time. He said he was constantly having to comfort her and build her back up. Then he calls her an amazing woman and denies the fight that they got in that night. And he talks more about how she may have driven drunk and how he tried to convince her not to and she did anyway. I asked him about the last time that he had seen Alexis and he said I saw her, she was leaving, told her not to drive intoxicated.
Starting point is 00:32:45 She went anyways, and that's where we're at is what he said. And I said, what do you mean by that? Where was she going? When you asked for specifics, or you tried to ask for details, he wouldn't provide those. And after this interview, Alexis's friends and family did interviews and wanted to set the record straight that Alexis really was a happy person.
Starting point is 00:33:03 They said that she was full of life and had no demons and that what Tom was talking about was just not accurate. She was kind of everyone. She made sure everyone was included and she was a friend to literally all. She was just like a light of
Starting point is 00:33:17 the room like she was. She was just so smart and just so funny. Everyone loved her. Everyone. She was just such like a bright light. Her giggles all the time. And that's it. Like she's never, she's never a down person.
Starting point is 00:33:31 Definitely the spirit that we needed in our friend group. She brought so much joy. She kept us all together. She was always happy. Always had a smile on her face. A lot of people looked up to her. She was just very, very positive, always positive, very knowledgeable, new, a lot about what was going on, loved being an influencer.
Starting point is 00:33:54 Her mom Stacy did say that she was not aware of any issues in their marriage. Alexis had never told her anything, but that doesn't necessarily mean nothing was happening, of course. But she did tell the media that she was never worried about Alexis being with Tom, even though he was quite a bit older than her, she was comfortable with the relationship. I know that when we spend time together, we enjoy him and we've had fun with him. I know that I've never been fearful of my child around him. So for a while detectives were just looking into Tom's background, trying to figure out their relationship, put more of a timeline together, but there was still no cause of death. And obviously this is a huge
Starting point is 00:34:33 part of the puzzle. Friends had planned a memorial service for Alexis on December 3rd, but the person who organized it decided to postpone it because they didn't have enough information of what it even happened and they just wanted to wait. So then finally, January 19th, 2021, the medical examiner comes back with the cause of death. It turns out that it was strangulation and that the manner of death was officially ruled a homicide, which was huge. Now there were no questions that someone had did this to Alexis. So of course, this just fueled the rumors online about Tom, even more.
Starting point is 00:35:10 People were very suspicious of Tom and what he was posting on social media and how he was acting. Here's one of his posts. Baby, please give me strength. Do you remember when we talked and joked about getting old? And I said, that's one thing you would never beat me at And we laughed so hard because you're so competitive Which something about that just gives me the creeps honestly. Here's another you made life so incredible Made sense of my existence my purpose and showed me how to truly love here's another one
Starting point is 00:35:38 I just want to say this while some of you were posting on social media helping us locate my world And we appreciate all your help love and, others were wasting time talking about other things. Basically, crap talk. And if my wife would have seen this, she would have been disappointed in your actions. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. I have been assisting deputies and making phone calls to find out what happened to my wife. Next time, stop and think and realize you don't know it all. One thing that he did that really upset people was he referred to Alexis in past tense before they even found her body, which was weird. Her friends made a go fund me that covered travel expenses to move her body and paid for her funeral, but there was actually problems getting her body back home.
Starting point is 00:36:21 And this definitely will make you think twice about Tom. So the medical examiner had listed Alexis as Alexis Lee Robynald, which is her maiden name instead of Sharky, which was a mistake. But he did list Tom as her next of Ken. And whoever is listed as next of Ken, in these cases, has a lot of power. But on January 18th, it came out that Tom had never officially claimed her body. Even though he was next to Ken, and it was up to him to decide what happens to her. When they first found out Alexis had passed, Stacy and Tom had some type of conversation,
Starting point is 00:36:57 and they agreed that Alexis would be buried back at home. Tom seemed to agree with this is what Stacy wanted, and he was cooperating at first, but eventually he ghosts her. That's right, he ghosts her mom. He stopped cooperating, stopped communicating at all, and they were just stuck. There was nothing they could do and they couldn't get her body home without his approval. And they really wanted to have this closure with her to have her body to have a viewing for her friends and family so that they could really start to move on. But eventually she gave up hope
Starting point is 00:37:29 that they would ever even see her again and all because Tom was an answer. But finally after two weeks of silence from Tom the medical examiner agreed to go ahead and list her parents as her next of kin and they brought her home. They held a small private funeral in her hometown. Some of her friends from Texas flew out to be there and at that point detectives were pretty silent about her case so all they could do was wait and that's kind of where we are now. Just waiting. But one thing that has been made pretty clear is that electronic forensic is gonna be huge in this case. Detectives are likely getting search warrants to search everyone's phone
Starting point is 00:38:07 that was in contact with Alexis and at this point we're just kind of waiting for more information. But of course people have their theories of what could have happened. So let's go over the possibilities. So obviously the number one theory is that Tom Sharkey did it. And of course I just want to say he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of course, I just wanna say he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and I am in no way saying that he is guilty. This is a theory.
Starting point is 00:38:29 It seems that most of Alexis's friends believe that Tom was the one who did it. Multiple friends have confirmed that Alexis had talked to them about Tom being abusive, controlling, and also very manipulative of her. That friend that went to Texas with her said that the whole time Tom was sending her really nasty messages. She also claimed that Alexis confided in her that sometimes Tom would strangle her
Starting point is 00:38:56 just for fun. And sometimes this is the sexual thing of course, but this would go until she would black out and oftentimes she would end up waking up on the bathroom floor Again, this is just according to her friend. I don't know if this is true and Tom has denied all of the allegations about the abuse and about the divorce even happening But some people think that if Tom strangled her on the regular that if this was a sexual thing for them that maybe it went too far and he covered up for it. So that's a theory. There's also a theory that he may have been mad that she was hanging out with that guy Sebastian until really late on Thanksgiving. Maybe he was mad that she didn't spend Thanksgiving with him or maybe she told him about the new guy and he cracked. People have theorized that maybe he did it early that Friday and that
Starting point is 00:39:47 maybe he was the one texting the group chat later that day to make it seem like she was still alive. Because that would explain why she was texting but not posting on social media. That just makes no sense for Alexis. There's also some records from his divorce back in Florida in 2009. That are worth noting. He is a son and daughter and at the time that he got divorced, they were about nine and twelve. And his wife specifically asked that she get sole custody and that he only gets supervised visits. Tom's family members also testified in court for this divorce that his mental state had been changing a lot. He had made some threats of suicide and he also had some detrimental actions that affected the kids. From the records that are available
Starting point is 00:40:31 it seemed like his family members were very worried for his kids and these are his family members. The court records also talk about how Tom would try to use his kids to get his wife to do things like basically use them as a tool to manipulate her and the indicated at one point that he had threatened her. And one time when she didn't get into what he wanted, he ended up sending her nudes to her employer. A lot of people had brought up the fact that Alexis was found nude on the side of the road and maybe this was an attempt to humiliate her in her death. That of course there's another theory that Sebastian, the DJ, could have been the one that did it. Of course, he was with her that night. People have speculated that since he has been a lot of time at raves and clubs and stuff that maybe he has experience with the drugs, maybe he introduced Alexis to something too strong and that she overdosed and he got
Starting point is 00:41:19 scared and hid her body. That's really the main theory about him. But anything could have happened. Maybe Alexis broke it off with him that night and he got angry or something else could have happened. He is an alibi until about 10-30 that night, that Friday. But he was either by himself or with Alexis after that. So maybe it was his car that Tom and scene Alexis get into. But there would be some evidence on her phone if she had contacted him to pick her up, which is possible we just don't have access to that. But these are purely theories and there's no real evidence that Sebastian had anything to do with it. And there's even theories out there that Tanya
Starting point is 00:41:56 and maybe some of her other friends could have been involved. People pointed out that yes, Alexis had this supportive group of friends, but she also had just met a lot of them. People have been critical of Tania for continuing to talk to the media and putting out interviews even though police have asked her to stay quiet.
Starting point is 00:42:12 A lot of what we know and some of the timeline comes directly from her. I don't know who could have done something like this to her. We were her friends. She wasn't one to have a lot of group of friends. Whoever did this is, I mean, we're gonna find them. We're gonna do everything it takes so everyone can put her to rest in peace and where we can get answers and just move forward. But no one gets away with something like this.
Starting point is 00:42:39 No one. And then people realized that Tania was actually featured on Inside Edition back in 2019. And for the strangest reason, she had eight plastic surgeries in one day, and they were designed to make her look like Meghan Markle. And of course, this has nothing to do with the case at all. I wanted to mention it because I knew people would bring her up in the comments, but people have definitely questioned her more because of this, just as far as reliability goes and stuff. But this, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the case.
Starting point is 00:43:06 But some people do suggest that maybe all of her friends are coming up with this whole abuse story to make Tom look like the one who did it even though they did. There's all types of theories, but they're just theories. Then there's the idea that maybe it was a stalker. I mean, Alexis had this huge falling, she's a stunning girl, maybe someone was keeping up with what she was doing. Or there's the idea that it could have just been a random attack, wrong place at the wrong time, basically. That Alexis was out late at night, and that maybe someone attacked her. But to me, I think it's incredibly strange that Tom was uncooperative with her family
Starting point is 00:43:46 as far as getting her body. That says a whole lot. Alexis's family and friends have vowed to never stop fighting until they figure out what happened and get Alexis Justice. Alexis's social media has grown quite a bit after she passed. I will have it linked below if you want to check it out. Her mom has actually said her having followers and interactions on her past content Makes her feel happy makes her feel like her daughter is still spreading positivity and joy and laughter on the internet even after her death So yeah really strange one I know that there's gonna be a lot more information coming out I can't wait to see what else does
Starting point is 00:44:21 Maybe it'll make a little more sense of all of this. I really hope that there will be justice for Alexis. I have a good feeling that maybe there will be. Alexis's mom has definitely taken the road of not putting any blame on anybody. She has not come out and said anything like, I think Tom did it. But she has certainly said things along the line of, I'm gonna let the police do their job and we're gonna see how this plays out, you know, just as we'll come That is gonna be it for me today guys
Starting point is 00:44:52 Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts It really does help me out if you want to watch the video version of this show You can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. about where you get the weather, you may be turning into your parents. Looks like it might rain. Let's see what Cory from Channel 2 has to say. He's something else. I like him better than Harris from Channel 5. You could just look up the weather on your phone.
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