Two models were found dead in their downtown Los Angeles apartments within a week of each other. The models, Maleesa Mooney and Nicole Coats, were found dead in apartments less than a mile apart.
Mooney was found dead on September 12, and Coats was found dead on September 10. The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the deaths.
Mooney was a 31-year-old model and real estate agent. Coats was 32 years old and known to loved ones as Nikki. Her body was found by family members in her apartment at the Eighth and Grand building.
It’s unclear if the deaths are linked, but distressed family members are looking for answers after the two women were found at locations six blocks from each other last week.
The body of Maleesa Mooney, 31, was discovered around 4 p.m. on Sept. 12 by police officers carrying out a welfare check on the 200 block of South Figueroa Street.
Details of Mooney’s death have not yet been shared by the coroner, but a homicide investigation is underway, police said. Mooney reportedly worked as a model and real estate agent in Beverly Hills.
“I can’t believe my baby big sister is gone,” Mooney’s sister, Guyanese pop star Jourdin Pauline, wrote on Instagram. “This feels so surreal I keep waking up crying thinking I’m in a bad dream we will get justice for you my sister.”
“The Los Angeles Police Department is requesting the public’s help in identifying any and all persons responsible for Maleesa Mooney’s death,” police said in a statement.
A second woman, Nichole “Nikki” Coats, 32, was found dead two days prior, a mile across downtown from where Mooney was discovered, KTLA reports. Coats also worked as a model.
Coats reportedly told friends she had a date on Sept. 8. After not returning calls or texts over that weekend, her family found her dead in her home in the Eighth and Grand apartment building on Sept. 10, the outlet reported.
“I want some answers because my daughter is gone,” Coats’ mother Sharon told reporters through tears on Saturday. “It’s not fair. I want everybody to find out who did this to her.”
Coats’ aunt May Stevens told KTLA she believes Nikki Coats was murdered. “One of her legs was up in a kicking position,” Stevens told reporters. “That’s not somebody who has laid in their bed and died.”
