Collection: Sativa Transue

Sativa Nichelle Transue was on vacation for Thanksgiving weekend in Cancun Mexico when she was murdered by her boyfriend, Taylor Keith Allen-Duran. 

"Sativa was born on May 19th 1995 in Spokane Washington and was raised in Cheney Washington. She graduated from Cheney High School in 2013 and from Eastern Washington University in 2017 with a degree in exercise science. She had plans to further her education with training to become a massage therapist.

Sativa decided to take an opportunity to move to the west side of Washington in June of 2017 to help open new dispensaries in Pullauyp and Auburn Washington. For the last 3 years Sativa had loved living in Milton Washington. She often said it reminded her of home. While Sativa missed all of her family and friends in Cheney, she was so excited to make new friends and grow as a person.

Sativa was kind, generous, funny. She was a ray of sunshine, spreading her positivity and happiness everywhere she went. She was the best friend to everyone who knew her.

Sativa and Taylor met while working at Lucid both here in Cheney Washington, and at the Auburn and Puyallup locations. They began dating about 3 years ago.

Their relationship started with him isolating her from friends that didn’t like him, and any guys he saw as threatening. Over the years it got worse. We barely saw her, and when we did, he’d punish her for going by disappearing for days with no communication, sometimes even taking her dog. Things got even worse once Taylor was off Parol for what I was told was an illegal distribution of marijuana charge. Sativa told me he began taking drugs. Specifically cocaine and molly. We also found many needles hidden in the apartment. He began drinking often, and would be so different and angry while drunk that she called it a different personality, “Tee’s Beast” is what she referred to it as.

I went to visit Sativa in August, staying with her and Taylor for about a week and a half. In that time I barely saw Taylor. He was always off “doing work phone calls” in his car or “training” for boxing at a gym he said was in Lacy. When he was home, he was smoking pot, or hanging out with his neighbors. Taylor was a very good Chameleon, becoming a likeable, fake person around everyone, but he was very different behind closed doors. There were holes in the walls, and broken things upstairs. The textbook abuser. I missed all the signs. Sativa had explained them away. I’ll always regret not pressing for more answers. I’ll regret not trying harder to get her to leave.

Sativa and Taylor left for Cancun on Thursday November 25th 2021, Thanksgiving Day. She and Taylor had been in an argument before they even got on the plane. Taylor had made plans for them both to move in to a duplex opposite of his mother, who Sativa strongly disliked as she was extremely controlling of Taylor and she tried to control Sativa.

Sativa texted me to say she loved me and Happy Thanksgiving. I told her to be careful and jokingly told her how to say help me in Spanish. She asked me to spell it how it sounds. I thought that was odd, but didn’t dwell on it at the time.

The next day she posted pictures of the awesome view from her hotel, The All Ritmo Resort and Waterpark. She texted me that she was enjoying the sunshine. She snapchatted my daughter Amelia from what looked like a bar. At 5:38 pm our time Sativa texted me saying “I’m fu led up”. The last text I received from my sister was at 6:06 pm and she said “for freak”. I just figured she was drinking as she was on vacation in Mexico.

The next morning I received messages from one of her friends, asking me to call her. I didn’t even think anything bad had happened. I screenshot the message and sent it to Sativa asking who she was and the message didn’t go through. That’s when I began getting worried.

Our mom woke up to a call at 9 am from the American Consulate in Mexico telling her Sativa was found dead in her hotel room. Shortly after that call she got a facebook messenger call from Taylor’s cousin, Richard also telling her that Sativa was dead. It’s not clear how he knew before we did.

Sativa’s friends had gone to the police after not receiving answers to concerning text messages the night before. Sativa had told them that she had to get stitches and that Taylor had escaped security.

Taylor’s mother, Rosa Duran, called Sativa’s friend hours before the Consulate called my mom. She said “I think something’s wrong, I think Sativa’s dead”. She later tried calling my mother, trying to figure out what we knew while we were grieving my sister and trying to figure out what had happened.

We will never know the whole accurate story, but according to police, witnesses and videos, here’s what we can piece together.

Earlier that evening Sativa and Taylor had gone to dinner at the restraunt in the hotel. A witness said they seemed normal.

They then went back to their hotel room before returning to the bar in the hotel. They got pretty intoxicated. The witness stated that Taylor was kissing another girl at the bar and Sativa was obviously upset, trying to pull Taylor away from the girl. He was said to be “intolerable”, Security and personell had to ask him to leave and they escorted him to their room.

He started acting irratically, running and jumping over fences and chairs. He fell after an attempt to jump over a chair. A consierge that had spoken to Taylor called his name when he then realized he was in trouble, he tried to jump the fence again and he fell again. He then was calmed down and was taken to the room where Sativa was. The hotel personel and security asked her not to let this 250 plus pound man out of their room again. Sativa said okay and went inside.

It is unclear exactly what happened at this point because we’ve heard different stories, but it seems that someone called the front desk after hearing screaming from Sativa’s room. At this point they were on the 4th floor. When hotel staff saw Sativa they noticed a deep cut on her chin and she was taken to the lobby for medical assistance, however the cut was so deep a doctor had to be called. The doctor came to the hotel where she was given stitches for a cut about an inch and a half long.

Meanwhile hotel staff and security were looking all over the hotel for Taylor. According to the manager, they asked Sativa if he had hit her and she denied it. She told them she didn’t remember but she guessed that she fell.

Taylor wasn’t found until a worker went into their hotel room and found that their window was open. Someone went out into the “air conditioning monitors” on the roof of the hotel and he was out there laying on the ground appearing to be extremely intoxicated. A witness said that the access was very tight up there and he could’ve fallen down. Hotel staff and security were on the roof from approximately 9:30 pm to 1 am trying to talk Taylor down. Hotel staff said he was yelling that he didn’t know he was on the roof. He was threatening to jump. They called the police so Taylor could be rescued. Hotel staff at the All Ritmo Resort and Waterpark claimed they had it under control and had police called off. Said police never showed or spoke to either Sativa or Taylor until Sativa was already dead.

Security gave him water and poured ice water on his head. They tied ropes around his waist and tried to get him to come into the window. When he woke they got him calmed enough to come inside. They then said they put him in the shower to cool him off.

While that was happening, we were told that Sativa was looked at by the doctor. She was given food while she waited. Someone said they had tried to talk to her about Taylor but she was uninterested. They asked her again if he had hit her and they said she replied “I love him a lot and he’s very good to me” They also said that they offered her a separate room in front of Taylor so that she didn’t have to sleep with him. They said she said no. (This part is so frustrating. She’s in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language, with a man who is at least 3 times her size that’s already escaped from security, obviously she’s not going to say yes in front of him)

They were then both moved to the 1st floor to avoid Taylor trying to jump again. We were told she helped Taylor pack and was trying to calm him down by rubbing his thighs while he sat on the bed.

The next morning Taylor went up to the lobby on the second floor in his underwear, according to witnesses he was freshly showered. Taylor walked up to the desk calm as could be, without looking up from his phone he said “my wife is unconscious”. We were told he said this in a very cold tone.

Then, we were told his mother, Rosa, called the hotel desk repeatedly trying to get them to let her talk to Taylor.

A woman next door heard the screams and didn’t report them. The head of security heard screams for help and kept walking. Hotel staff and security were afraid of Taylor, but they didn’t have him arrested. So many people failed Sativa.

My sister was found face down on her hotel floor with her purse around her as though she were trying to leave. Several pieces of Sativa’s jewelry were ripped out according to the autopsy report. Sativa had a black eye, a bruised nose, bruises on her cheeks. She had the stitches on her chin. The rest of her body was also badly bruised. She had marks on her wrists and ankles as though she were being restrained from trying to get away.

Sativa showed defensive signs as well. My 140 pound sister tried to fight off a 260 plus man and while screaming for help, no one came even when they heard her. That makes me sick. I’ll never understand how someone could just ignore that. We were told she showed all the signs for fighting as hard as she could.

Sativa’s official cause of death is strangulation with many contusions.

After this happened, the Milton Police Department got ahold of my mom. Since her and Sativa were the only two people on the lease, they were able to go over and have the locks changed so nothing could be taken before we were able to get Sativa’s belongings. They also took Sativas cat to a shelter so that she was cared for until we were able to ultimately give her to Sativa’s close friend.

Unfortunately, changing the locks didn’t keep someone from getting what they wanted from the apartment. Rosa Duran called the apartments office repeatedly trying to get them to let her in that morning. They said no as Taylor wasn’t on the lease. She tried again the next day. Later that evening staff at the apartment office said Rosa called repeatedly at least 100 times just to hang up when they answered, until they closed. Coincidentally, an hour later a neighbor had noticed that Sativa’s apartment door had been literally kicked in, with large boot marks on the door. Rosa Duran of course claims to know nothing about that, and isn’t concerned about any of her sons cars that were “stolen”. Many things were noticed missing as the police had been there to take pictures earlier. Some items that were missing included: Taylor’s two personal vehicles and his work SUV, All of the keys that had been hanging up, including Sativa’s. There was a safe missing, along with an Xbox and some other items. The Milton Police came again and took more pictures. When we came the next day to collect Sativa’s things, the police noticed the apartment had been broken into again. The only thing that appeared to be missing that time was all marijuana that was in the apartment.

As though all of this wasn’t already enough trauma for our entire family, we then inquired about Sativa’s emotional support dog, Shadow. Sativa had gotten Shadow about a year and a half ago on her own, however whenever she and Taylor went on trips he made Sativa leave her beloved dog with his mother, a woman she did not even trust. Not only did we kindly ask Rosa for Shadow, but the police asked her for the dog. Unfortunately Rosa Duran lied to the police, claiming that Sativa and Taylor had given Shadow to her permanently when they left for Mexico. However, there are many witnesses, including myself, who were told specifically that Rosa was only dog sitting and Sativa, in her exact words “couldn’t wait to save her dog from Rosa the second she got home” Police regardless told us they can’t do anything.

Our family wants to say Thank you to everyone that donated to our Go Fund Me. Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate her. Thank you to everyone who continues to check on my family and I. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to tell us the ways that Sativa touched your life. Thank you to everyone that have been sharing her story. Thank you to everyone who brought us food or dinner or anything special for Sativa. Thank you to everyone who bought shirts and stickers. And thank you to everyone who cared about her and surrounded her with positivity and love while she was here.

Please continue to share her story