To the appropriate Ohio state authorities, federal civil-rights authorities, Washington County officials, and all agencies responsible for investigating the death of Natosha Lashunta Courtney:
We, the undersigned, are calling for a complete, transparent, and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the detention, medical treatment, release, death, and subsequent death investigation of Natosha Lashunta Courtney.
Natosha was a 29-year-old Mississippi native, military service member, commercial truck driver, daughter, sister, aunt, and deeply loved member of her family and community.
In June 2026, Natosha traveled to Marietta, Ohio for work. On June 3, she was arrested and taken to the Washington County Jail.
During her detention, records indicate that Natosha experienced a serious mental-health and medical episode. Hospital documentation later referenced her repeatedly striking her head while incarcerated, a reported loss of consciousness, and reported self-harm. She was transported to Marietta Memorial Hospital for evaluation.
Importantly, hospital documentation shows that after evaluation she was considered stable enough for discharge to self-care. Records reproduced during subsequent forensic review indicate that although Natosha described having experienced suicidal thoughts while incarcerated, she denied current suicidal ideation during the hospital evaluation.
After her release, witnesses reported seeing Natosha at a local Denny’s restaurant on June 10, 2026. Employees reported that she remained there for several hours, spent significant time using her phone, and left the restaurant on foot at approximately 6:00 p.m.
Investigators later corrected Natosha’s last known phone activity to approximately 6:38 p.m. EDT on June 10, after an earlier time was determined to have resulted from an incorrect UTC conversion. Location information associated with that activity placed her phone in or near the Walmart area.
What happened to Natosha after leaving Denny’s—and how she ultimately reached Duck Creek—remains one of the central unanswered questions in her case.
There is presently a critical gap in the known timeline:
Denny’s at approximately 6:00 p.m. → phone activity associated with the Walmart area at approximately 6:38 p.m. → unknown movements → Natosha discovered deceased on June 13.
Three days later, on June 13, Natosha was discovered face down in Duck Creek near the Baymont Hotel in Marietta.
Since that day, our family has spent months attempting to understand what happened.
Instead of receiving clear answers, we have encountered conflicting statements, unexplained evidence-handling issues, unanswered questions, and discrepancies between records and later conclusions.
Among the most serious concerns is a statement reportedly made by Washington County Coroner Dr. Roxanne Cech during a recorded conversation with Natosha’s sister. According to the family’s preserved account of that conversation, the coroner stated that Natosha was already deceased before she entered the water.
Yet the subsequent postmortem examination listed drowning as Natosha’s cause of death.
If accurately recorded and understood, those two statements require a clear forensic explanation.
There are additional unresolved questions concerning Natosha’s clothing and personal property, the handling and identification of her cell phone, unexplained removal or significant shortening of her hair, the method used to establish her identity, the location where she actually entered the creek, surveillance footage, phone-location information, her treatment while incarcerated, and the preservation and testing of biological evidence.
Our family also has serious unanswered questions concerning the condition in which Natosha’s remains were returned to Mississippi.
When her body arrived, our family observed that her hair had been shaved or significantly removed and that she was unclothed. Yet the original postmortem documentation states that her body had initially been received wearing wet clothing, including a shirt, shorts, and shoes.
Our family has not been provided with a clear explanation identifying when Natosha’s hair was removed, why it was removed, who performed that procedure, whether the removed hair was preserved, when her clothing was removed from her body, where that clothing was stored, or why her remains arrived in Mississippi without the clothing on her body.
These issues raise important questions regarding documentation, evidence handling, preservation of trace evidence, and chain of custody that deserve independent review.
Our family also has unresolved concerns regarding personal belongings associated with Natosha’s employment with RG Logistics in Illinois.
The family reports that several of Natosha’s personal belongings, including her laptop, clothing, and other property, were not returned and remain unaccounted for.
These belongings should not be treated simply as replaceable personal property. A laptop, documents, clothing, and other personal effects may potentially contain information relevant to Natosha’s communications, digital activity, employment circumstances, movements, contacts, and final days.
We therefore believe the location, handling, transfer, retention, and ultimate disposition of every item belonging to Natosha that remained with or came into the possession or control of RG Logistics should be fully documented.
If any of these belongings still exist, they should be preserved immediately and evaluated for potential evidentiary value before being altered, discarded, transferred, wiped, destroyed, or otherwise made unavailable for examination.
Our family also has serious civil-rights questions concerning what occurred while Natosha was detained.
We want to know whether her constitutional rights were protected, whether appropriate medical and mental-health care was provided, whether her known medical condition was appropriately considered and accommodated, whether force was used against her, whether required monitoring and suicide-prevention procedures were followed, and whether her reported loss-of-consciousness episode received appropriate investigation and treatment.
We are not asking the public to presume homicide, suicide, misconduct, theft, or a cover-up.
We are asking for something much simpler:
Follow the evidence wherever it leads.
If every agency, company, and individual acted appropriately, an independent investigation should confirm that.
If mistakes were made, they should be identified.
If evidence or property was mishandled, that should be documented.
If Natosha’s civil rights were violated, those responsible should be held accountable.
And if another person played a role in her death, our family deserves to know.
We are asking authorities to:
Conduct an independent review of Natosha’s death, separate from agencies whose actions or decisions are themselves under scrutiny.
Review Natosha’s entire Washington County Jail detention, including video, restraint-chair records, suicide-watch documentation, medical logs, officer reports, incident reports, use-of-force documentation, and communications concerning her hospital transport.
Review whether Natosha’s constitutional, disability, medical, and civil rights were protected during her detention.
Obtain and preserve all available body-camera, jail-video, dispatch, surveillance, traffic-camera, hotel, restaurant, Walmart-area, business, and other relevant recordings.
Complete a minute-by-minute forensic reconstruction of Natosha’s June 10 movements, including the period between her approximately 6:00 p.m. departure from Denny’s and the approximately 6:38 p.m. Walmart-area phone activity, using carrier records, GPS/location information, cell-site data where available, calls, messages, digital activity, financial transactions, surveillance footage, and witness interviews.
Determine what the 6:38 p.m. phone activity actually represents, including whether it was a call, data session, network event, location update, or other activity, and determine the level of precision associated with the Walmart-area location.
Provide a written explanation reconciling the reported statement that Natosha was dead before entering the water with the subsequent determination that her cause of death was drowning.
Establish and disclose the complete chain of custody for Natosha’s cell phone, laptop, clothing, jewelry, watch, employment-related property, personal belongings, and other physical or digital evidence.
Establish the complete chain of custody for Natosha’s clothing, beginning at the recovery scene and continuing through the original autopsy, transport, funeral-home custody, and subsequent independent forensic examination, including who removed the clothing, when it was removed, where it was stored, and why Natosha arrived in Mississippi unclothed.
Determine when, where, why, and by whom Natosha’s hair was shaved, cut, or significantly shortened, whether the procedure was documented photographically or in writing, and whether any original hair was retained or preserved as evidence.
Determine whether removal of Natosha’s hair or clothing affected the preservation of any potentially relevant trace, biological, or forensic evidence.
Determine the location and disposition of all property belonging to Natosha that remained with or came into the possession or control of RG Logistics, including her laptop, clothing, documents, electronic devices, employment-related materials, and other personal belongings.
Obtain and preserve any property inventories, photographs, receipts, communications, emails, text messages, shipping records, transfer records, company logs, or other documentation showing what belongings RG Logistics possessed, who handled them, and what ultimately happened to them.
Immediately preserve any of Natosha’s property still in existence, particularly computers, electronic devices, storage media, documents, and clothing, so that potentially relevant physical or digital evidence is not lost.
If Natosha’s laptop or other electronic devices are located, ensure that they are preserved in a manner that protects potential digital evidence and metadata before any examination, resetting, deletion, or alteration occurs.
Obtain an independent forensic-toxicology review of the testing already performed and determine whether additional testing should be conducted using retained specimens.
Immediately preserve all remaining biological and toxicological specimens, including decomposition fluid, liver, spleen, tissue, histology material, DNA-related material, and any other retained evidence.
Place written preservation holds on all relevant evidence so that nothing is destroyed because a routine retention period expires.
Release all records that may lawfully be released to Natosha’s family and provide a clear accounting of records that remain withheld and the legal basis for withholding them.
Refer any credible evidence of civil-rights violations, criminal conduct, evidence destruction, obstruction, property misconduct, or official misconduct to the appropriate independent state or federal authority.
Why This Is Urgent
The toxicology report concerning Natosha specifically states that laboratory samples are retained for one year and may thereafter be destroyed unless the responsible agency requests their return or long-term storage.
That means time matters.
Potentially irreplaceable evidence should not disappear while critical questions about Natosha’s death remain unresolved.
The same concern applies to digital and physical property. Computers can be wiped. Electronic accounts can change. Surveillance footage can be overwritten. Clothing and personal belongings can be discarded or transferred. Records can become harder to locate as time passes.
Our family has already had to fight to obtain records, stop Natosha’s remains from being cremated before we could bring her home, arrange an independent forensic examination, and preserve evidence ourselves.
We should not have to fight simply to ensure that evidence still exists long enough for qualified experts to examine it.
Who Natosha Was
Please remember that this petition is not simply about an investigation.
It is about Natosha Lashunta Courtney.
She was someone’s daughter.
She was my sister.
She was an aunt.
She served her country.
She worked.
She dreamed.
She loved people, and people loved her.
Natosha’s life cannot be reduced to the circumstances in which her body was found.
Whether the eventual answer is homicide, accident, suicide, medical complication, negligence, or something no one has yet considered, our family deserves an answer supported by evidence.
We are asking attorneys, activists, civil-rights organizations, veterans’ organizations, disability-rights advocates, journalists, forensic professionals, elected officials, and members of the public to stand with our family.
Sign this petition.
Share Natosha’s name.
Demand preservation of the evidence.
Demand an independent investigation.
Demand the truth.
JUSTICE FOR NATOSHA LASHUNTA COURTNEY 💙