(WSVN) - A Navy officer is behind bars, accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend when she refused to get an abortion. It has left her South Florida family shattered. 7’s Karen Hensel investigates.
This is a smiling 20-year-old Raquiah Paulette King when she graduated from North Park High School in Opa-Locka.
Gregory King, Raquiah’s father: “If she walked in a room right now, she would come busting out smiling, because she’s full of joy.”
Her father, Gregory King, says his youngest daughter moved earlier this year from South Florida to Virginia to start a new life with her boyfriend.
Gregory King: “She was a hairstylist. She also did tattoos. She loved people.”
But Raquiah’s young life was cut short.
Her body was found on July 21 dumped along a country road in Hanover County, Virginia.
Gregory King: “I didn’t want to believe it. Who wants to believe that their child is dead, that their child was killed?”
The accused killer? Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Navy Lt. Emmanuel Dewayne Coble.
Search warrant documents obtained by 7 Investigates reveal she was shot once in “…her back…” and “…was 12 weeks pregnant.”
The pages detail her final 24 hours.
Investigators say on July 20, Coble paid for an abortion at a clinic, but once inside, Raquiah changed her mind.
Coble told a detective that “frustrated” him.
Gregory King: “She wanted to be a mother, so when this baby came about, she wasn’t getting rid of it.”
According to the documents, Raquiah told her mother the Navy sailor “…did not want to be a father…” and that “…if something was to happen to her, Emmanuel Coble was responsible.”
She even texted her mom, “…Coble’s full name, date of birth, addresses and phone numbers.”
A search of Raquiah’s phone found her last text was sent to Coble on the day of the abortion appointment, at 11:40 p.m. that night.
Seven hours later, her naked body was found near the road.
Investigators say she was likely killed elsewhere, and there are signs she may have been sexually assaulted “…within an hour of her death.”
Gregory King: “But to know that somebody took her life, and that it was a struggle?”
The Navy confirms the day after her body was found, Lt. Coble reported for duty aboard the USS John C. Stennis.
Three weeks later, on Aug. 11, he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Gregory King: “What more can I do as a father besides grieve? The only thing I can say is, my daughter wanted that baby, and I don’t know if that baby cost her her life. That’s all I can say.”
Police say they found blood in the trunk of Emmanuel Coble’s car and a hair band that matched one found on Raquiah’s wrist during her autopsy. Meanwhile, on the day she was supposed to have the abortion, documents show she texted a cousin that she was planning on leaving Coble. Prosecutors are considering more charges in the death of the unborn baby.
Karen Hensel, 7News.
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