‘It’s Been Playing Back In My Head Every Day’: Worker Describes Shocking Discovery Of Influencer Alexis Sharkey’s Body

A worker who discovered social media influencer Alexis Sharkey’s dead body along the side of the road said the images continue to haunt him.

“It plays back in my head,” John Richardson told local station KHOU of the grim discovery. “It’s been playing back in my head every day.”

Richardson was working for the City of Houston Solid Waste on the morning of Nov. 28 when he got a call from another employee who reported seeing either a body or mannequin along the road.

“He wasn’t too sure,” Richardson told the outlet. “He wasn’t going to stop because he was scared or whatever the case may be, so he asked me to come out there to check it out.”

Richardson decided to drive by the scene and was shocked by what he saw.

“When we were driving, we could see the feet. We got out and looked and there it was,” he said. “She was laying there deceased, no clothes on. I just got on the phone, and I called 911.”

Houston Police said Sharkey—also known as Alexis Leigh Robinault—was found dead around 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 28 along Red Haw Lane, according to a statement from the department.

She had no visible wounds and the cause of death remains under investigation by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

“It’s still an active criminal investigation,” a spokesperson with the Houston Police Department told Oxygen.com.

Michele Arnold, public information officer for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, told local station KPRC that the final autopsy report has not been completed.

“I’ve said that foul play has not been ruled out,” Arnold said of the investigation.

While investigators are still trying to piece together how Sharkey died, her mother Stacey Robinault told KPRC last week that she didn’t believe her daughter’s death had been an accident.

“The way in which she was found—my child would never do that to herself,” she said. “That doesn’t even make sense. That is absolutely foul play.”

Sharkey had moved to Houston in January along with her husband, Tom Sharkey, and was working as a social media influencer when she died.

Tom Sharkey, 49, took to Facebook shortly after his wife’s death, writing, “My world! My everything! I’m so lost right now! My one and only!” along with a series of photos, in a post that is no longer publicly accessible.

He also told local station KTRK that the pair had a happy marriage and he was the one “holding her, cuddling her and building her back up.”

“It's horrible. People are talking tons of crap. I'm getting death threats and stuff. None of that bothers me. What bothers me is that world and everybody in it focuses on all of the stuff that doesn't matter ... should have been focused on finding my wife," he said.

However, Sharkey’s friend Tanya Ricardo told KHOU that she believed the couple had been having martial issues at the time Sharkey died.

“Recently, she opened up to us about it and divorce was being filed,” Ricardo said, adding that her friend had been private and “didn’t share a lot about what was going on at home.”

Stacey Robinault told KHOU that the wait for answers in the investigation has been like a “terrible state of purgatory.”

“We’re trapped in the waiting,” she said. “I talk to detectives every day and they assure me that they are working along, and they are reviewing and talking to people. To me, five days feels like eternity. And to them, I’m sure they’re just getting rolling.”

She’s still trying to determine why something like this happened to her daughter.

“Why would you do something so horrific to her? What was the ultimate gain? What was gained from that? Because all I know is tremendous loss,” she said.