Denver Police are trying to determine whether a 22-year-old woman, whose body was found in an alley November 16, died of natural causes, an overdose, or was murdered.
The victim’s mother, Olga Martin, believes someone killed Zoie Martin-Macko and dumped her body in the alley between South Alcott and South Bryant, near West Bayaud Street.
“She loved living a fast life,” Martin said. “She did drugs. She was an escort.”
Martin said her daughter had just come back to Denver, after spending five months in the Garfield County Jail for assaulting a police officer.
“She was released November 10,” Martin said. “On Saturday the 14, she said she had to go out and she’d be back in two hours and she never returned.”
Court documents indicate that a neighbor called 911 at 7:16 a.m. on Nov. 16, after finding “a possible dead body by the trash can in the alley behind 124. S. Alcott St.”
The document also indicated there was no visible trauma to the body, but a “caustic liquid substance appeared to have saturated parts of her clothing and caused injury to large areas of her skin.”
Martin said that liquid was acid.
“I just think something went terribly wrong and they tried to erase her fingerprints,” she said, “then threw her in the alley like any other whore or drug fiend.”
The victim’s mom became emotional as she described how the victim was positively identified.
“It was her tattoos,” Martin said. “That’s how I was able to say it was her.”
Martin believes someone absconded with her daughter’s cash.
“She owed money,” the mom said. “She was being, I think at the end, forced to sell her body for these people… it’s heartbreaking for me as a mother.”
The victim’s boyfriend told Denver7 that there are evil people out there who are willing to kill.
Police are saying very little about the case.
The coroner is not yet releasing a cause of death, but a spokesman said the final report is being written up and will likely be released soon.
Martin said she’s speaking out now, because she wants people to know about the dangers of drugs.
“Zoie had developed a pretty serious meth addiction,” she said. “She started to ‘slam’ meth in April.”
The concerned mom told Denver7, “Addiction is taking too many lives, but it’s the evil people who are profiting that piss me off.”