‘There should be justice for Emonyi’: Richmond mother’s body found in shopping cart, wrapped in blanket near an alley

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – A local family is speaking out after their loved one’s body was found on Richmond’s Southside last month.  

According to the Richmond Police Department, officers were called to the 1900 block of Krouse Street for a report of a person down on Tuesday, June 4.  

Once officers arrived on scene, they found a woman who was unresponsive and wrapped in a blanket. She was pronounced dead at the scene.  

Family members have since said the woman who was found was 28-year-old Emonyi Rainey.  

“She was just a free spirit. That’s the best way I can put it,” her mother, Colondra Williams, said. “Unpredictable. That’s the word I’m gonna use. She’ll pop up. She’ll call me [and say] ‘Mommy, what [are] you doing.”  

According to her family, Rainey’s body was found in a shopping cart near an alley in a wooded area wrapped in sheets. 

“No one deserves to die like that. So, I feel like it should be something coming out of this,” her aunt, Shadonna Bethel, said. “I believe that there should be justice for Emonyi.” 

Rainey’s body remained in the morgue listed as a “Jane Doe” for almost a month after being found.  

“I got the call in the middle of the night, [I] didn’t know for sure that [it] was her. Somebody saw it on Facebook, and it just basically went from there,” Williams said. “Her body had certain marks and I had pictures that they showed me and I was like, ‘No, that’s not my daughter.” 

Willaims said she called the medical examiner’s office and received the news.   

“She asked me certain questions. And I answered her questions. And she basically told me that it was my daughter,” Williams said.  

Police called the death suspicious at the time, but they have not released information about the cause or if there are any possible suspects.

Rainey’s family just want answers about what happened her. They say she leaves behind two children.   

“I will say this if anybody knows anything, seen anything, heard anything, call somebody. Call somebody, because there’s more to this story than it appears,” Williams said.  

Police ask anyone with information about this death investigation to call Major Crimes Detective Sergeant M. Mocello at 804-646-6775.