Christian Obumseli's Family Says Police Are Dismissive Of Victim

The case of Christian Toby Obumseli, who was fatally stabbed inside a luxury apartment building in Miami, Florida, by his white girlfriend,  Courtney Clenney a.k.a. Courtney Tailor, is still an ongoing one, according to Miami-Dade police, but not much has changed since we first started reporting on the stabbing last month.

Source: In Memory & Justice for Christian Toby Obumseli GoFundMe / GoFundMe

Tailor is still roaming around free like she didn’t kill a whole human. Tailor’s attorney, Frank Prieto, is still sticking tightly to his client’s self-defense claim, which also paints Obumseli as an abuser and her as a faultless victim, and Obumseli is still adamantly claiming he never abused her and that the stabbing was unprompted. 

In fact, on a recent episode of Dr. Phil, Obumseli’s mother, Chio Obumseli, asked a simple question that has long needed answering.

“Where is the evidence that Courtney stabbed and killed my son in self-defense?” she asked.

It’s a more than fair question seeing as Tailor’s attorney has repeatedly declared that when the evidence comes out, it will show unequivocally that Clenney acted out of self-defense.

During a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Tailor’s attorney Frank Prieto made the same claim with slightly more insight as to what happened the night of the stabbing as he recalled that his client attempted to render first aid to Obumseli after she stabbed him.

From Rolling Stone:

According to Clenney’s lawyer, Frank Prieto, she had become soaked in Obumseli’s blood while trying to revive him. “She tried to administer first aid as best she could; she called 911,” Prieto tells Rolling Stone. “She got covered in his blood trying to save his life.” 

Prieto says he joined Clenney at the police station that night, adding that she gave officers a statement voluntarily, during the course of which she said something that led them to believe she might harm herself.

“I thought it was best to make sure she was OK, and [the police] spoke to me about ‘Baker-Acting’ somebody, which is an involuntary commitment to the hospital,” Prieto says. Clenney was admitted, then discharged less than 48 hours later. She soon returned home to Texas.

While the police say the incident is still under investigation, Obumseli’s family and their attorney say different.

In fact, Karen Egbuna, Obumseli’s cousin, told Dr. Phil that the detective on the case was ready to close the investigation after 24 hours. The cousin and the family also said that they have yet to see the medical examiner’s report.

“(The detective]) was just very, very cold,” Egbuna said. “He wouldn’t tell us what occurred until, finally, when he called later on Monday evening and he stated that based on Courtney’s reporting, that Courtney had killed him in self-defense, and that there was enough evidence for him to close the case, close the investigation at that particular time.”

So, according to the family—who, by the way, said they hadn’t even learned of Obumseli’s death until a day later when his mother says she was called and asked if Obumseli wanted to donate his organs—investigators are ready to conclude that a dead Black man and a white tearsy white girl means this is an open and shut domestic violence case and we should all move on. Certainly, that’s the narrative that Clenney and Prieto would prefer.

Friends Of Courtney Tailor And Christian Toby Obumseli Talk To Rolling Stone

Of course, there’s only one problem (I mean, outside of the obvious white privilege at play here); the couple’s friends are still saying Tailor was the abuser in their relationship. In fact, they allege that they “feel compelled to challenge Clenney’s story” and note that the couple’s relationship was toxic, with Tailor allegedly being physically abusive, Obumseli seeking to appease her, and calm her down. 

“The reality is we did see a lot of domestic violence, and it was on her end,” says one friend who knew the couple when they lived in Austin. 

Reporting also suggests Clenney abused substances and had allegedly been violent toward at least two other men before Obumseli. Prieto acknowledges the alleged violence in Clenney and Obumseli’s relationship could have gone “both ways,” but he says that doesn’t change her claim of self-defense in his stabbing, reports Rolling Stone. 

But doesn’t it though? After all, the only person who really knows what happened before the stabbing is with her parents in Texas and is not currently arrested or even charged with a crime.

It’s easy to claim self-defense when you’re the only one alive to tell your side of the story.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Phil also talked to a Courtney/Christian friend who told a similar story about abuse to the talk show host.

Watch below.