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Social Media Influencer Alexis Sharkey Found Dead On Side Of Road And Mom Believes There Was ‘Absolutely Foul Play’ Involved
The body of Alexis Sharkey, 26, was discovered along a Houston road Saturday morning with “no visible wounds,” deepening the mystery surrounding her death.
The mother of a social media influencer found dead along the side of a Houston road believes there was “absolutely foul play” involved in her daughter’s mysterious death.
Alexis Sharkey—officially identified by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences as Alexis Leigh Robinault—was found dead around 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning “along the side of the road” at 1000 Red Haw Lane with “no visible wounds” to her body, according to a statement from Houston Police.
The 26-year-old social media influencer was discovered by a Houston Public Works employee who spotted Sharkey’s feet in some bushes while driving by the location, according to KTRK.
Multiple local media outlets, including local station KPRC, reported Sharkey was naked when she was discovered; however, a spokesperson with the Houston Police Department would neither confirm or deny that detail to Oxygen.com.
Police said Sharkey’s cause of death is still pending an autopsy conducted by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, but her family believes she was likely the victim of foul play.
“The way in which she was found—my child would never do that to herself,” her mother Stacey Robinault told KPRC. “That doesn’t even make sense. That is absolutely foul play.”
Sharkey’s close friend Tanya Ricardo told KHOU-TV that Sharkey had spent Thanksgiving Day at her house and the pair planned to get together with some other friends on Saturday to watch movies.
Ricardo said she last spoke with her friend Friday evening around 6 p.m. and became increasingly concerned the next day when Sharkey stopped responding to her text messages and phone calls.
“She is attached to her phone. She is a social media queen. She is an influencer. She works on her phone,” Ricardo said.
Stacey Robinault, who lives out of state, told KPRC that she discovered her daughter was missing Saturday after her daughter’s husband of about a year, Tom Sharkey, called her to report that Alexis had disappeared and had been reported missing to the Houston Police.
Later that day, Robinault issued a plea on Facebook to find her missing daughter.
“My daughter Alexis Sharkey is missing!!” she wrote. “No one has 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 are so very desperate!!!”
But by Monday night, Robinault posted another message confirming her daughter’s body had been found.
“It’s with deeply broken hearts that Mike and I want to let you all know that Lexi’s body has been found,” she wrote. “We cannot begin to thank you all for your love and the kind words you’ve extended to our family! Please give us this time to grieve this incredible loss to our family and this world!!! We will miss you, Love!!!!”
Robinault said the last time she had spoken to her daughter they had discussed spending Christmas together in Pennsylvania this year, where Sharkey grew up.
“We haven’t seen her since last Christmas and that’s the longest we’ve ever gone,” Robinault told KPRC. “We were desperate to see her and excited to see her.”
Alexis, the oldest of three sisters, had moved to west Texas, where she met her husband Tom Sharkey. The pair moved to Houston in January.
Alexis had been working as a full-time social media influencer when she died, her mother said.
“She loved what she did,” Robinault said. “She had been working with an online company and was selling all health-based hair care and body care products.”
She said the family was “completely wrecked” by the news of her death.
Alexis’ husband, 49-year-old Tom Sharkey, also posted a series of messages on social media expressing his grief.
“You made life so incredible! Made sense of my existence! My purpose! And showed me how to truly love!,” he wrote along a series of snapshots of his wife, including one of her trying on a wedding gown.
In another post, Tom Sharkey called his wife his “world.”
“My world! My everything! I’m so lost right now! My one and only!,” he wrote.
Friends who knew Alexis, however, said the couple had been struggling before her death.
“Recently, she opened us to us about it and divorce was being filed,” Ricardo told KHOU-TV. “She was a very private person. She didn’t share a lot about what was going on at home.”
Houston Police declined to release any further details of the case to Oxygen.com.
Anyone with information about the death is urged to contact the Houston Police Department Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
