Disturbing Snapchat. 'Date-rape' drug. Two dead women: Families want answers cops don't have

Update: Antonio “Hollywood” Wood, who lived at the home where Courtney Smith and Chelsea McKinney were found dead in 2022, was convicted Sept. 6, 2023, of criminal confinement with bodily injury in an unrelated case. The judge in that case found Wood not guilty of rape. Wood has not been charged with any crime in connection with the deaths of McKinney and Smith. This story was originally published in 2022.

When Brittany McKinney pulled up to the west-side home, she expected to see her sister and her sister’s best friend waiting outside.

It was just before 1:50 p.m. She figured their Sunday-morning hangovers would already be fading after a night spent celebrating at Downtown bars.

The two women, though, weren’t answering their phones or Facebook messages. Brittany McKinney didn’t know the man who lived at the house, only his nickname ― “Hollywood” ― and that her sister had been seen leaving the bars with him.

Brittany McKinney entered the man's living room at his invitation. Her sister's best friend, Courtney Smith, 29, was on the floor. Chelsea McKinney, 28, lay on a loveseat. Hair concealed her face. A blanket covered her body.

“Wake up,” Brittany McKinney said, reaching a hand to shake her sister’s shoulder. “Wake up.”

The shoulder was cold. Terrible thoughts raced through her mind. Brittany McKinney, a nurse, knew the harbinger of that touch.

She swept the hair from her sister's face, revealing a grim mix of blues and grays across her skin, stretching from above her lips toward her chin.

She ripped the blanket away. Underneath, Brittany McKinney said, she saw her sister's black crop top and bra pushed toward her face, leaving her breasts exposed.

Brittany McKinney started screaming. She kicked and punched a wall beside the couch. Then, tears in her eyes, she collapsed to the floor.

The man nicknamed Hollywood called 911. A dispatcher asked if he would perform CPR, but Brittany McKinney’s voice responded.

"She's dead,” she shouted. “I'm a nurse and I'm telling you she's dead. She's cold."

Rigor mortis had already begun, leaving her sister’s body stiff. She tried a couple compressions, but her sister’s body was thick rubber. Chelsea had been dead for a while, probably several hours.

Courtney, too, was dead, an arm’s length away.

Brittany McKinney didn't understand. Chelsea and Courtney were last seen by family at 3:20 a.m., still laughing and walking without a worry. How did they end up in this house? How did they end up dead?

She turned her attention to the stranger next to her. When she hadn't heard from her sister that morning, a friend put her in touch with Hollywood. But beyond his nickname, Brittany McKinney knew little about him. As other family members began arriving at the scene, her mother noticed something.

Hollywood had an electronic monitor on his ankle.

The families would later come to consider it the first clue in their monthslong effort to find out what happened to Chelsea and Courtney. But beyond learning the women died of overdoses, the family's efforts would ultimately leave them without firm answers.

Another side of the epidemic

The deaths of Chelsea McKinney and Courtney Smith on May 22 demonstrate the complex challenges facing Indianapolis as it tries to combat overdoses caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid which is now killing more people every year than guns and vehicle crashes combined.

There are too many deaths for detectives to investigate all of them. In fact, IMPD policy doesn’t necessarily require a detective to respond to overdose scenes, even when there are multiple fatalities.

Their deaths also illustrate another side of that epidemic: The heartbreak and questions left behind for families who feel their loved ones are too quickly brushed aside.

Police didn’t initially treat the deaths as a criminal matter. Responding officers secured the scene, but no detective came.

The response from authorities left family members not just angry but skeptical of IMPD’s commitment to solving Chelsea’s and Courtney’s case, so they began investigating on their own.

Brittany McKinney, for example, cloned her sister's phone and started messaging strangers on Facebook. She recovered her sister’s vehicle and wrapped it in a tarp to preserve any fingerprints. She even examined her sister’s body for evidence of assault in a back room at the funeral home.

The efforts of both families yielded a number of troubling discoveries. A Snapchat video in which Hollywood pokes and jeers the women after they become unresponsive. The presence of a drug in Chelsea's system that can be used recreationally but is also associated with date rape. And more than a dozen bruises on her body.

But with each discovery came a new set of questions.

No one has been charged in the deaths of Chelsea and Courtney. This article, produced in partnership with Fox59, begins on May 21, the night before Chelsea’s sister discovered their bodies in Hollywood's home.

A night in Downtown bars

Courtney sat in the backseat of her cousin’s car belting out the lyrics to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Girls in the Hood” as they drove Downtown. Streetlights and bright storefronts cut through the car’s shadowed interior to reveal Courtney’s playful smile as the car passed Monument Circle on the way to the bar district.

They were celebrating her cousin’s birthday. For Courtney, it was a break from her busy schedule. She worked several jobs to keep her daughters, 8 and 10, enrolled in competitive cheerleading and to provide better opportunities for her 4-year-old son, who is autistic.

Chelsea, meanwhile, stopped at her mother’s house to borrow some of her sister’s clothes for the rare night out. The siblings were close. Chelsea followed in her sister’s footsteps by pursuing a career in the health care field, most recently as a sterile technician at Eskenazi Hospital. The mother of two, ages 9 and 6, had recently registered to return to Ivy Tech Community College to finish classes for an associate’s degree.

Chelsea’s sister remembered her bouncing into the home that night to show off her freshly painted toenails. Chelsea didn’t typically do “girly” stuff like that. She was a simple girl, Brittany McKinney said, comfortable in her own skin.

“She felt really super excited,” said Kelly Bryan, Chelsea's mother, “like it was really special.”

Chelsea and Courtney became friends more than a decade ago at Thomas Carr Howe Community High School.

“They were pretty much two peas in a pod,” said Tina Latham, Courtney’s mother.

The two women met up at a Downtown parking garage at about 11:30 p.m. Over the next few hours, they jumped between Tiki Bob’s Cantina and Taps and Dolls, two popular bars on the same block of South Meridian Street.

They drank. They danced. And they used cocaine.

How much cocaine they used and how many times isn’t entirely clear. Autopsies of the two women would later show they had small amounts of a cocaine metabolite in their systems. The amount in Chelsea’s system was so small the coroner’s office didn’t even list it in the cause of death.

One family member said she witnessed the two women enter the bathroom at Tiki Bob’s at about 1 a.m. They poured cocaine from a baggie onto Chelsea’s phone screen and did what the family member described as a “bump,” or small portion. Chelsea then walked back up to the man who had given them the baggie, presumably to return the rest of the cocaine, the family member said.

Police would later tell family members they don’t believe that was the only time the women may have obtained drugs in the bars that night. The cousin who witnessed the women doing cocaine at Tiki Bob’s disputed that suggestion. She told IndyStar that she was with Chelsea the entire night, including in the bathrooms, and she witnessed Chelsea using cocaine only once.

Either way, the two women remained conscious for several hours.

At 2 a.m., Courtney spoke briefly on the phone with her mother, who was picking up Courtney’s sister from the bar.

"She was fine. She was a little tipsy," Tina Latham said. "She said, 'Mom, I love you.'"

Her mom replied: "OK, I love you too, you drunk." It was a joke, Tina Latham explained, because Courtney became more expressive when she drank. “And that’s the last time I talked to my daughter.”

Courtney’s cousins left the bar around the same time, but Courtney stayed behind with Chelsea, Chelsea's cousin and her cousin's boyfriend.

Chelsea's family last heard from her at about 3:20 a.m. That's when the remaining group of four went to the parking garage after Taps and Dolls closed.

Hollywood, whose real name is Antonio Wood, joined them. He’s worked at Taps and Dolls and has been a regular presence in the bar for years. Chelsea and Courtney knew him from the Downtown bar scene.

Chelsea’s cousin, Kala Bryan, and her boyfriend walked to their vehicle, which was parked near Chelsea’s SUV. As Chelsea backed up her SUV, she clipped something in the garage. That’s when Wood got into the driver’s seat of Chelsea’s vehicle. Kala Bryan watched as he and the two women drove off into the night.

The ankle monitor

It was more than 10 hours later when Brittany McKinney discovered the women’s bodies inside Wood’s home, just north of the speedway and about a 20-minute drive from Downtown.

Grieving family members soon started gathering outside. Among them was Brittany and Chelsea McKinney’s mother, Kelly Bryan. She was the first to notice Wood’s ankle monitor. Using her phone, she ran his name through the Marion County court system’s online portal.

The results concerned her.

Court records showed Wood had been charged with rape and criminal confinement in 2018. A former partner accused him of sexually assaulting her after he asked for a ride home from Ike and Jonesey’s, a now-closed bar near Taps and Dolls. A judge temporarily placed Wood on electronic monitoring in the pending case, which has a trial set for this month. He has pleaded not guilty.

Indianapolis bar scene: Downtown bar Taps and Dolls closes

Wood sent some portions of the Snapchat video to Brittany McKinney the same afternoon that she discovered the women's bodies. But she did not see the full video, including the moments where her sister’s head falls to the seat, until Courtney’s family shared it with her.

To be clear, Wood is not facing any criminal charges in connection with the deaths of the two women, and police say he is not a suspect.

Wood declined to comment for this article and referred IndyStar to his attorney, Ralph Staples.

“Mr. Wood has been completely cooperative with the police department,” Staples said, “and has responded to all of their requests.”

At the scene, Chelsea's mom was horrified. Why was her daughter’s dead body at the home of someone facing a rape charge?

She said she raised her concerns with anyone at the scene who would listen, but no homicide detective responded to the scene. No detective of any kind responded.

Both families believed that police showed little interest in understanding what happened. Authorities at the scene returned the women’s phones to their families without looking through them for clues. They did not examine Chelsea’s SUV, which was still parked Downtown. They even let Wood change his shirt while two women lay dead in his home, family members said.

The families were confused. They didn’t understand why the situation was not being treated like a crime scene.

And that was before they saw the video.

The Snapchat video

The video is from Wood’s Snapchat account, recorded sometime after the bars closed.

The women's families believe the video shows them dead or dying.

It begins with Courtney sitting in the passenger seat of Chelsea's SUV parked a few blocks south of the bar district.

Courtney’s head is leaning forward, chin pressed into the top of her chest. Her eyes are closed, her lips appear to be blue. She is largely unresponsive, but lets out a couple soft moans.

Wood, meanwhile, is pushing her head up and tapping her forehead and saying: "Wake your dumb ass."

He then walks to a white sedan nearby.

"In my backseat, look," he says, opening the rear door, "Stupid. Hey stupid!"

In the backseat is Chelsea. Her face is pressed into the seat and a roll of toilet paper is wedged next to her head. Her arms are tangled beneath her body and her knees are spread apart, with one leg on the floorboard and the other on the backseat. The unnatural position leaves her buttocks elevated. Her feet are bare.

Wood slaps and pats Chelsea’s butt, asking if she had urinated on herself. He grabs her by the ankle and pulls. He tries to move Chelsea’s head, but it falls heavily back to the seat. Wood continues to call her stupid, and to call Courtney stupid.

The video disgusted the families of both women.

“I don't care what anybody says. I know Courtney died in that video. As a mother, I know she was already dead in that video. I heard that girl take her last breath,” said Tina Latham, Courtney's mom. “And when you get it the day after your daughter dies, you just lose your mind even more. It's just been a nightmare.”

Typically a Snapchat video disappears within a day, but a friend of the women saw what Wood posted. The friend recorded it and shared it with Courtney’s family, Tina Latham said. The time stamp suggests the video was likely posted sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Wood’s attorney would not comment on the video. On social media, Wood said he would never hurt anyone and he loved both Chelsea and Courtney. He said he took Chelsea’s keys and was waiting for the women to sober up. He didn't want to leave them Downtown in that condition, he said.

"Her body is completely lifeless. You can tell that she's already dead,” Brittany McKinney said. “Any person in their right mind would know that something is not right and that you need to get medical help immediately."

Instead, the two women ended up dead. Authorities would later tell the families that Wood either dragged or carried the women inside his home.

Too late for a rape kit

The lackluster police response. The ankle monitor. And now the video.

Kelly Bryan had enough.

After getting home from Wood’s house, she sent a Facebook message to a sergeant in the homicide unit. She asked him to call her, and they spoke the following morning.

The department changed course after the phone call, IMPD confirmed to IndyStar. It opened a criminal investigation.

But by then it was too late to answer one of Kelly Bryan’s first and most important questions: Did anyone sexually assault her daughter?

A critical step to answering that question would have been a criminal autopsy that included the collection of bodily fluids and other DNA that may have been on Chelsea’s body.

The autopsy took place at 9:50 a.m., records from the coroner's office show. No one from IMPD was there. No one collected the evidence necessary for a rape kit.

The coroner’s office was still operating under the belief that the women’s deaths were accidental overdoses.

“Our job is simply to perform the exam to determine the cause and manner of the death,” Chief Deputy Coroner Alfie McGinty told IndyStar. “The homicide detective has to be at the autopsy to identify what specific concerns they have, what they want looked at or examined or collected.”

By the time an IMPD detective arrived that morning, Chelsea’s autopsy had already been completed and her body had been washed, which is routine following a typical autopsy.

Any evidence, to the extent that it existed on Chelsea’s body, was gone forever.

But Kelly Bryan would not learn any of this until two months later, when she received a written autopsy report from the coroner’s office.

Discovery of 'date-rape' drug

On the same day that Kelly Bryan found out that no one collected a rape kit on her daughter, she learned another troubling piece of information.

Chelsea tested positive for gamma hydroxybutyrate, often referred to as GHB. It is a sedative with a variety of uses but is also associated with date rape because it can prevent victims from resisting sexual assault.

Looking through the autopsy reports for her daughter and Courtney, Kelly Bryan grew confused. Courtney’s report noted that investigators collected evidence necessary for a rape kit, but Chelsea’s autopsy didn’t include any of that.

She wouldn’t learn why ― that an IMPD detective wasn't present for her daughter’s autopsy ― until several days after receiving the report.

"I had questions, like, did you guys look at her chest? Was there any type of DNA? Was there any type of semen? Was there anything left there? Was there anything left on her physically?" Kelly Bryan said. "They said this ain't CSI. We don't look at stuff like that."

As for Courtney, IMPD is still waiting for the results of the rape kit. The autopsy report, though, said there was no evidence of a sexual assault.

Courtney's mother still has concerns. The coroner's office also tested Courtney for GHB, but the results were inconclusive.

"They should have done another test on her. They should have made sure," Tina Latham said. "That's what's really irritating my soul."

Experts told IndyStar that a body can produce small amounts of GHB after death. For that reason, one expert cautioned, positive results can be a red herring. In Chelsea's case, the amount was relatively small, but still large enough to warrant inclusion in the autopsy report.

Chelsea likely ingested GHB, said McGinty, the deputy coroner. But it’s unclear how the drug ended up in Chelsea’s system, and IMPD does not appear to be pursuing the answer in its investigation.

"It has been used for bodybuilding. It has been used as a 'date-rape' drug. And it has been used as something people ingest for fun,” said Dr. Christopher Poulos, chief forensic pathologist for the coroner’s office. “And a small amount of it ― less than we have here ― can even be generated endogenously after death."

Chelsea’s family won’t ignore it, however, in part because of what they discovered in the weeks and months following the women's deaths.

At the funeral home, Brittany McKinney found several bruises on her sister’s body. Her concerns appear to have prompted a second review by investigators. The autopsy report notes 14 additional bruises and abrasions “became apparent during the process of embalming.”

Brittany McKinney also noticed the paint on Chelsea’s toenails ― which she had been so proud of the night before her death ― appeared to be scratched and scraped, as if she had been dragged.

"I think there was a fight because she's a fighter,” Kelly Bryan said. “And I think there was maybe a struggle.”

The coroner’s office, however, said bruises on the arms and legs are common and could be a result of being dragged or any number of other causes, such as stumbling while intoxicated.

A massive amount of fentanyl

When people die of drug overdoses in Marion County, their manners of death are typically listed as accidental.

For Chelsea and Courtney, however, the coroner’s office ultimately labeled the deaths as “undetermined." The autopsy alone could not determine whether the women used the drugs voluntarily or were unknowingly drugged.

“It is probable that the decedent intentionally used illicit substances for their psychoactive effects ... It, however, cannot be completely excluded that the decedent was surreptitiously given the illicit substances by another," a note on Chelsea’s autopsy report says. "Because suspicions have been raised that the decedent was given illicit substances by another and this cannot be completely excluded, the manner of death is categorized as 'undetermined.'"

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The cause of death for both women is described as “acute mixed drug intoxication.” They tested positive for alcohol and deadly amounts of fentanyl, a powerful opioid frequently added to drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine as a cheap way to increase their potency. People taking those drugs often don’t realize they’ve been cut with fentanyl.

Experts who reviewed the autopsy findings at IndyStar’s request described the fentanyl levels as massive.

“If you take the other drugs away, the fentanyl is an adequate explanation for death,” said Robert Powers, a forensic toxicologist and professor at the University of New Haven. “In fact, it's pretty walloping.”

The large quantity suggests the women thought they were getting cocaine, experts said, but instead ended up with a lethal dose of fentanyl. And it was large enough to quickly kill the women, likely within minutes.

If so, it means the women likely died from fentanyl they ingested after the bars closed. The exact time is unclear but Chelsea’s phone offers a few ideas.

A text message shows they discussed obtaining cocaine after leaving the parking garage. Nearly half an hour later, just before 4 a.m., Chelsea posed for a photo with Wood in what appears to be the same parking area where the Snapchat video was recorded. And her Apple Watch, captured on her iPhone’s health app, recorded what her family believes were her last steps at 4:06 a.m.

During a meeting family members had with the coroner’s office and IMPD last month, a homicide unit supervisor informed the family that IMPD is not investigating the deaths as homicides, but that detectives would continue to investigate who provided the drugs. IMPD told IndyStar that investigators are committed to holding accountable whoever is responsible for the women's deaths.

In an interview with IndyStar this month, IMPD Deputy Chief Kendale Adams acknowledged that ideally the department would have started investigating the deaths from the moment Chelsea’s and Courtney’s bodies were found.

He emphasized, however, that the fentanyl crisis is overwhelming all investigative agencies. Data from the coroner’s office shows the number of drug overdoses in Marion County has doubled over the past six years, driven by a 645% increase in fentanyl-related deaths. Of the 826 people who died of overdoses last year, 78% involved fentanyl.

It is impossible for IMPD to investigate all of them, Adams said. So the department reconstituted an overdose response team to take on the cases that have the strongest chances of leading to criminal charges, such as drug dealing or dealing resulting in death.

"Oftentimes there's not anything for us to pursue,” Adams told IndyStar, “so that's why we try to triage the most critical cases that will lead to identification of a potential suspect."

Amid pressure from the families, police later obtained the women’s phones and looked through Chelsea’s SUV. More than 16 weeks after the deaths, IMPD’s investigation is still ongoing. It often takes several weeks or even months to build a drug case that will stand up in court, Adams said.

Multiple suspects are on detectives’ radars, Adams said, but Wood is not one of them.

“His behavior is inappropriate. It's disgusting. It's troubling,” Adams told IndyStar. “But from everything that I've been told it doesn't raise to a criminal nature.”

All of this has done little to reassure the women's families. They go weeks at a time without hearing from IMPD, and even when they do, it’s not always clear which detective is investigating their deaths. It’s led to rampant miscommunication. And it’s led to family members spending untold hours searching for the answers.

Brittany McKinney's frustration led to an eruption at the meeting with the coroner’s office and IMPD last month.

“I could give you a timeline, I can tell you when her body stops moving, I could give you all of that,” she said. "That is not my job. I should be grieving and mourning and supporting two children without a mom. I shouldn't be investigating. You failed to communicate with my family, just as you failed to communicate with the coroner's office."

Unanswered questions

The cold truth is this: The families of Courtney and Chelsea will likely never know exactly what happened to them.

The questions will continue to haunt them. Who gave them cocaine? Who knew it was cut with fentanyl? How did a "date-rape" drug end up in at least one of their systems? Were they sexually assaulted?

Why didn’t Wood seek medical help? Why didn't the police do more?

It is as if their questions are frozen in ice while the rest of Indianapolis moves on.

“It's like Courtney and Chelsea got put to the side,” said Tina Latham, who is now trying to ensure a future for her grandchildren. She worries that Courtney’s youngest child may not remember his mother.

Chelsea’s family, meanwhile, has been so consumed with seeking answers that they have hardly had a chance to mourn.

Brittany McKinney still thinks about one of her last conversations with her sister before Chelsea went Downtown.

“She had asked me to go with her,” she said. “And I said, ‘No.’ More than anything I wish that I could go back and then I would have went so that I could protect her. That was my job as a big sister."

But it is the children left without mothers who will suffer most. Chelsea's daughter recently asked for God’s cell phone number so she could call to check on her mom.

Contact IndyStar investigative reporter Ryan Martin at ryan.martin@indystar.com or by phone, Signal or WhatsApp at 317-500-4897. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter: @ryanmartin.

Contact IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at 317-444-6081 or tony.cook@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @IndyStarTony.

Contact IndyStar reporter Dayeon Eom at deom@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @eom_yeon.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fentanyl in Indianapolis: OD kills two as Snapchat raises questions