Pregnant White Woman Who had a Black Boyfriend is Found Drowned

Dispatch
January 7, 2015

A 20-year-old woman missing since Christmas Day — when she announced her pregnancy — drowned, the Ross County coroner has ruled.

Coroner John Gabis would not speculate how or why Shasta Himelrick, who was found on Friday, ended up in the Scioto River about a mile south of the Higby Road bridge.

Gabis has not ruled the death a homicide.

“My job is to determine cause and manner of death. The cause is drowning. The manner is still being determined.”

He said evidence gathered by the Ross County sheriff’s office will help determine whether foul play occurred.

Calls to Sheriff George Lavender Jr. were not returned last night.

Himelrick, who was identified yesterday by “very unique” tattoos, was last seen by relatives at her home in Richmond Dale, where she announced she was pregnant.

“She was so happy,” said her grandmother Shirley Himelrick, 75, whose home Shasta lived in.

Shasta was spotted on a surveillance tape at 3:15 a.m. on Dec. 26 at a Speedway gas station in Chillicothe.

Law enforcement and private search teams used dogs, horses and helicopters, and gates at the Paint Creek dam were closed to lower the river’s water level.

The car Himelrick had been driving was found with a dead battery and no gas on Dec. 26 near farm fields and woods upstream from her body, about 4 miles west of her home.

“I don’t know why she would be out there,” said Shirley Himelrick. “She had no cause to be out there. We’re just trying to figure out why.”

Shasta Himelrick appeared to be in the very early stages of pregnancy, Gabis said. Tissue testing will verify that.

Because the cold had preserved the body, the time of death was unknown, Gabis said.

“There were no signs of trauma that would cause her to be unconscious,” Gabis said. “When somebody is in the river and current is moving them along, the injuries (from bumping into rocks) can look as though they were inflicted.”

The autopsy of another woman, Erica Cottrill, found on Thursday on Madison Avenue in Chillicothe, was completed yesterday. Gabis said toxicology testing will help determine whether she died of a drug overdose.