COLUMBUS, Ohio – The death of a 20-year-old pregnant woman who disappeared Christmas Day has been ruled a suicide by the Ross County Coroner, according to a media report.
The body of Shasta Himelrick was pulled from the Scioto River on Jan. 2, nine days after her family last saw the Richmond Dale woman.
The Chillicothe Gazette quotes a release from the coroner’s office which states that Himelrick had cocaine and oxycodone in her system, but not at fatal levels, and Coroner Dr. John Gabis concluded Himelrick drowned in the river after entering the water of “her own free will.”
The body showed “no sign of pre-mortem trauma or any injury that would have caused her death,” according to the release.
Before being found in the river, about a mile from her abandoned car, Himelrick was last seen alive in surveillance video footage (left) taken while she was entering and exiting a Chillicothe gas station in the early hours of Dec. 26.