11 February 2024 , 19:40
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This is the moment the mother of one of the Kentucky women who was allegedly drugged and raped at a Bahamas resort last month knew "something wasn't quite right."
The case all began with a text, Frankie King said. Her daughter, Dongayla Dobson, one of the two women who fell victim to the heinous act, reportedly told King: "Call us now we've been drugged and raped." But King knew something was off with her daughter slightly before even that.
Dobson and her childhood best friend, Amber Shearer, had gone on a Carnival Cruise, during which they spent an entire day relaxing in the Bahamas at Pirates Cove Resort on a beach on Grand Bahama, one of the nation's islands, earlier this month.
READ MORE: Mum's chilling text from daughter who was 'drugged and raped with pal in Barbados'
The two women enjoyed tropical drinks on the beach before they were allegedly attacked, the drinks having been spiked (Amber Nicole Shearer/Facebook)
The injuries one of the women sustained during the brutal attack (Amber Nicole Shearer/Facebook)As they enjoyed their time, they both got cocktails from a bar they visited at around 9:30 or 10am local time on February 1. That's where they were allegedly drugged, something slipped into their drinks and then raped at their hotel.
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A live video they filmed, which King said she had watched, alerted her to the fact that something might have been wrong, she told Fox News. "They were falling all over the place," she said. "They don't drink a lot, but I've seen both of those girls drunk. I knew there was something else going on. Like something's not quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it."
Just two hours after that was when King received the text of her nightmares telling her that her daughter and Shearer had both been raped. But with them both hundreds of miles away in a different country, there wasn't much, if anything, that she could do except try to comfort them both from afar.
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The women had been enjoying the Bahamas as part of a cruise trip (Amber Nicole Shearer/Facebook)
Both women are now back in Kentucky and sharing their experience on social media in the hopes that other women stay safe if they choose to visit the Bahamas (Amber Nicole Shearer/Facebook)She told the outlet that a nurse practitioner had helped save both women's lives after they were found unconscious in the bathroom of the resort they had been staying at, treating their injuries and then checking up with them every day since they returned home to Kentucky.
In an interview on NewsNation, Dobson said she and Shearer had been offered a special two-for-one deal on cocktails as they hung out on the beach, and they had accepted, sipping on delicious but unusually strong cocktails served in a pineapple and coconut. Around 15 minutes later, they were both incredibly drunk.
King recalls trying to keep up with the two as they got drunker and drunker and finding it impossible to do so due to terrible service. She was able to get ahold of them at one point after the disturbing video, at which point they told her that neither of them had even had one full drink yet. King was concerned.
Sometime after that, the women were allegedly lured to a secluded area of the beach by a staff member with a goatee under the pretense that they would be looking for seashells. That's where they were allegedly raped, Dobson later said.
It was reported that a 40-year-old resort staffer from South Bahamia and a 54-year-old from Eight Mile Rock were arrested by the Royal Bahamas police for the assault. It was only after everything that Dobson and Shearer found out that the US State Department had issued several security and travel warnings about the Bahamas in recent weeks.
There were reportedly 18 gang-related murders in the Bahamas in January alone, the State Department said through the US Embassy in the country on Jan. 24. The eastern side of Nassau, the Bahamian capital, was considered the most dangerous. Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said the island nation is "alert, attentive and proactive" as it works to keep its shores safe and "welcoming" for tourists. The investigation is continuing.