10 Years Ago This Bright Young Woman Was Found Inside 2 Duffel Bags In The Woods And Her Murder Is Still Not Solved
Mustang, Oklahoma. Carina Saunders was a 19-year-old living in Mustang, Oklahoma. She lived with her parents and her 8 siblings.
She had beautiful, long hair and piercing bluish-green eyes.
Her family explained in her obituary that they selected her name, which means “dear little one,” because they felt it was such a perfect fit after she was born.
“Even the hospital nurses said she was the most beautiful baby. She grew to be a sweet, calm, and loving child,” they went on to say about her.
Carina flourished in school. She easily made friends and her family says she was very bright. She won a statewide award for accounting when she hit high school.
She loved to sing. She was in the honors choir. She pursued opera singing lessons and aspired to be an opera singer when she grew up.
She was beautiful. She was smart. She was talented. She was funny.
Carina was so academically gifted, she was able to graduate from Mustang High an entire year early.
Facebook; Carina smiles in the photo above
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It was then that Carina’s future stopped looking so promising…
Unfortunately, Carina lost her way in the year following her graduation from high school. She started abusing different substances.
She stopped coming home regularly. She started hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Carina’s family would keep tabs on her through Facebook since she wasn’t coming around much and they had no other way of contacting her, as she did not own a phone.
Carina didn’t want to struggle the way that she did. She wanted to get clean. She wanted to fix her life.
So, she went to rehab. On September 18th, 2011, Carina completed her treatment. When she came out, her family thought she was thriving and it had been a long time since they saw her doing so well.
Just ten days after she left rehab, she posted the very last thing she would ever share on Facebook before her life was brutally taken.
Facebook; Carina snaps a selfie, above
Carina asked what everyone was doing that night, but not a lot of people replied to her post with plans.
In the days that followed her final post, her family started to get worried. They couldn’t get a hold of her online. They had no idea where she was. She hadn’t shared any more updates.
The days turned into weeks. And then, it was October. The 13th, to be exact.
A local rescue group in Bethany, Oklahoma was looking through the woods behind a grocery store that sat on the corner of Rockwell Avenue and Northwest 23rd Street.
They were hoping to find some feral cats they knew were hanging about, but as they looked for them and set traps, they found something disturbing.
There sat 2 duffel bags; a larger one and smaller one next to one another. The rescuers didn’t have to get close to the bags at all to think that something was seriously wrong.
A smell was coming from the strange bags, and they immediately called the police.
Facebook; Carina is pictured above
Pieces of Carina were inside of the 2 bags. I say pieces, as she was dismembered, and authorities have never been able to find her body parts that were not inside. Authorities had to rely on her dental records and unique tattoos to positively identify her. An autopsy report revealed that she had been drugged with Tramadol before she was killed.
The autopsy further details, “there is a tattoo on the upper back showing rectangular cut marks, in attempt made to remove the tattoo.”
Facebook; pictured above is Carina’s back tattoo that was partially removed, it says Kween Spade
Her body was in moderate stages of decomposition. Authorities suspect she was tortured, given she had several strange contusions.
They did not know for sure if she was dead or alive when she was dismembered. The autopsy report goes on to say, “It is felt that the cause of death is classified as a violent death.”
“The manner of death is homicide based upon the circumstances surrounding the death and the autopsy.”
It didn’t take long for authorities to come up with 2 suspects, and rumors of a chilling bit of evidence.
MySpace; pictured above Carina smiles
During the investigation, authorities were told by several different people that a video existed of Carina’s violent death.
The people who confirmed this chilling piece of evidence was real did not have copies of it, however.
The video reportedly shows her being tortured, killed, and dismembered. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can give them a copy of this video.
People in the community also came together to come up with a $50,000 reward. They put a deadline on it that expired on October 31st, 2018. They then used that money to hire a private investigator to look into what happened to Carina.
There are so many theories surrounding Carina’s death, it’s hard to know what the truth is. Her killer or killers have still not been caught, although 2 men were arrested and thought to have been involved.
Facebook; pictured above is a flyer from the people in the community offering a reward of their own
Nine months after Carina was found, 2 men were arrested and charged with her murder on July 5th, 2012.
However, there just was not enough evidence to move forward, and on February 5th, 2013, charges against both of the men were dropped.
Authorities have also tried to focus in on who Carina was last seen alive with, learning that she was seen getting inside of a big, red truck on CCTV footage from the Newcastle Casino and Gaming Center.
The footage is from October 8th, 2011, and was taken just 20 miles away from where she was discovered. Police suspect that Carina’s death was on or close to October 8th.
Facebook; Carina smiles in the above black and white photo
Police could make out on the footage the man driving the truck that Carina got into had sleeve tattoos on both arms, but that’s all they have to go on.
A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has shared in a press release one more piece of information about Carina getting into that truck, “Also worth making note of is that there were girls nearby in a dark car who were pleading with Carina not to go with them.”
“To this date, we don’t know who those girls were, but we would like to know who they were.”
“If they will come forward, we’d like to talk to them, find out what they saw, what they witnessed, why they were concerned about Carina’s safety, and getting in this red pickup.”
Facebook; Carina is pictured in the photo above
What’s sad to me is that Carina’s case never received a lot of attention, and many people just wrote her off.
She lost her way over the course of one year in her life. But she got clean. She was wanting to make something of herself, and she was just 19-years-old.
“Check this out, This is what has become of Carina Saunders just another cold case, a face on a card because no one will stand up and do what is right, scarred and hiding from the truth and themselves,” her family shared in a Facebook post dated February 17th, 2018.
“Ah yes a Queen she is and so she should have been, You whom are hiding who know the truth, should you come forth and set her and yourselves free from this burden, this pain that is only yours.”
“I can only hope that this pinned up sin will eat away at you so that eventually you should reach that breaking point and do what you should have already done.”
“Time is everlasting but life is not. Do not let these sins eat away at the very life you have left. To live life is to be free, so you will not ever be able to enjoy your life as a free soul until you can set her free.”
“Bring closure to this case, so we can all feel at ease finally. Shed the light that is needed so we may finally put an end to this painful and traumatic ordeal.”
“Or share this pain that we all must live with from here on out knowing you could have put these demons to rest, once and for all.”
If you have any information on what happened to Carina, please call 1-800-522-8017.
Facebook; pictured above is a flyer made to help find Carina’s killer or killers
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