A 23-year-old veterinary student from Michigan has died after she was found lying on a road with head trauma — and police are investigating the death as a homicide after video emerged of the woman being ejected from a car.
Mia Kanu, a Tennessee State University senior, was found on Providence Drive in Southfield, Michigan, about 4:30 a.m. June 3 after attending a house party with friends, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Surveillance video captured Kanu either falling from or being pushed out of the vehicle onto Providence Drive near Coach Apartments, Fox 2 Detroit reported.
She was taken to Ascension Providence Hospital in Southfield, where was pronounced dead on June 5 — but she was put back on life support for three more days because she was an organ donor.
The chilling surveillance footage has not been released by police, who said they don’t know how Kanu ended up on the road and how she died. The investigation is being treated as a homicide.
“Anytime that there is an unnatural death, and especially concerning a young person, it is looked at as a homicide,” Southfield police spokesman Sgt. Jared Womble told the outlet.
“There were no deformities. No disfigurement. Nothing of that magnitude that at that point and time would imply any type of assault,” Womble told CBS News Detroit. “As of now, we don’t have any evidence that would suggest another vehicle struck her.”
Police said Kanu was in the car with two people, the driver and another passenger. They are cooperating with authorities.
“It’s our understanding that there was an argument between the driver and another individual in the parking lot of the apartment complex that they had left,” Deputy Police Chief Jeff Jagielski told Fox 2.
He declined to discuss the autopsy results other than saying “she did have significant head trauma,” WXYZ reported.
Kanu’s mom, Bianca Vanmeter, is desperate for answers about her daughter’s mysterious death.
“Something happened and somebody knows something, and we just want those answers,” she told Fox 2. “If they could just tell the true story of what happened and why they didn’t go back for her, why they didn’t help her more. I would really want to know that.”
Vanmeter told WXYZ: “I want to know what really happened and if they were with friends, why wouldn’t they call 911?”
She told the Free Press that the last time she saw Kanu, who returned to Michigan for the summer vacation, was the morning on June 2. A female friend later picked her up from work at the Green Lantern restaurant in Berkley. She went to a house party that evening with a group of friends.
Before arriving home for the summer, Kanu was a part of the TSU Agriculture Department and had spent time working on a farm caring for animals, the Free Press reported.
She also worked as a veterinary tech at the Richland Animal Clinic in Tennessee.
“Kanu was very passionate about educating pet owners about pet care,” said clinic manager Dawn Elza told the outlet.
“She knew all the names and personalities of all the pet boarders that would board regularly with us, and she had big goals and dreams of having her own business and being a veterinarian,” she added.
Vanmeter said her daughter’s first love was animals and that she had adopted a cat she named Tails while at TSU.
“I remember telling her when she got home from school, ‘Girl, this cat is raunchy,’ ” the mom said, chuckling.
“She loved it there (at TSU),” Vanmeter said. “She was already counting the days for when she could go back to school.”
Meanwhile, the grieving mom posted a heartbreaking video on Facebook of Kanu being taken on an “honor walk” at the hospital, where she is seen being rolled on a bed to have her organs harvested as people line a corridor.
“There was no brain activity,” Vanmeter told the Free Press. “Her liver went to a baby, her kidneys went to a recipient and her tissues and muscles were donated to the Gift of Life.”
