Last week, the tragic passing of Yolna Lubrin left her family and community advocates enraged, urging local leaders and law enforcement for explanations.
Known as Yo-Yo, the 31-year-old was discovered hanging from a tree in her yard last Thursday. The Orlando police department reported that officers were the ones who cut her down.
While the inquiry is still in progress and an official autopsy has yet to be disclosed, preliminary indications from the police lean towards “suicide” rather than suspecting foul play.
The Orlando Sentinel received an email from the OPD, “Although her cause of death is still being investigated and will ultimately be decided by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office, the deceased individual’s documented history of mental illness, witness statements, cellular communications from Ms. Lubrin, and the physical evidence observed during the autopsy all point to suicide.”
Approximately 60 individuals assembled outside city hall on Tuesday evening, echoing chants of “justice for Yo-Yo,” who was characterized as “brilliant, amazing and loud.”
“My sister is an African-American woman. Why is she getting swept under the rug?”Naomi Lubrin, her sister, spoke of those present at the gathering. “She was brilliant, she was amazing, she was laughter, but most of all she was loud.”
Naomi urged the attendees at the rally to be as “loud” as her sister and to persist in pressing investigators for further information.
“It is not right that my mother has to bury her 30-year-old daughter,” the sister said. “It’s not right that I have to stand before you right now and be away from my family just so we can have justice for my sister.”
The day after Lubrin’s passing, Miles Mulrain, the head of the local nonprofit Let Your Voice Be Heard, shared on Facebook his concern about the swift classification of the incident by the police as a suicide.
“They are immediately ruling it as a suicide, but finding any Black person hanging from a tree in 2023 requires more investigation no matter what,” Mulrain stated. “Especially in this case because there are too many unanswered questions and not enough proof.”
“This is not the first time or the first time in a while this has happened in Orlando. Just in 2020 we were asking the same questions about Nevan Baker, who was found hanging in a tree in a very suspicious way for it to be a suicide.”
Lubrin has no physical injuries, according to police, except than the ligature marks on her neck.
