DENVER — A last goodbye at her daughter’s coffin was a moment Olga Martin never prepared for.
She recorded it, hoping the memory would help erase a different one: A trash can and an alley on South Alcott Street.
“I dismissed it, thinking it’s trash,” said the woman who found Zoie Martin-Macko’s body.
Someone chemically burned it to remove trace evidence.
“She appeared to be different colors. She was white, red and little green. Her body was frozen,” the woman said.
Zoie’s Facebook page shows a vibrant young woman.
“Zoie means life. She was full of it,” Martin said.
But her mother also acknowledged Zoie dealt with struggles daily.
“My daughter was my twin, but I never put a needle in my arm,” Martin said.
She said Zoie left her home on Nov. 15 and a day later she was dead.
Damien Damani was Zoie’s boyfriend. He said Zoie was open about her choice to earn money by selling sex and he believes that will lead police to her killer.
“There’s a lot of girls here that are dying because people are drugging them and selling them off,” Damani said.
Denver police said they are conducting a death investigation. Martin said she grieved at her daughter’s coffin like the mother of any victim.
She said regardless of her past, her daughter deserves justice. And that day she promised her daughter she would get it.