Joe McCann is being held for questioning by the Tanzania Police after his fiancée, lifestyle influencer Ashlee Jenae, was found dead at a luxury resort in Zanzibar on April 9.
Ashlee Jenae had built a following of over 110,000 on Instagram.
She was discovered unresponsive in her villa at the Zuri Zanzibar resort and pronounced dead hours later at a nearby hospital.
The 31-year-old had been celebrating her birthday with McCann, a 45-year-old crypto fund founder, just days after he proposed to her during a safari on April 3.
The situation has now taken a darker turn since authorities revealed that the couple had engaged in a heated argument on April 8, prompting resort staff to move McCann to a separate room for safety reasons.
McCann claims he returned with a security guard to check on Ashlee Jenae and found her hanging from a door.
A hospital report documented a mark on her neck, and the official cause of death was listed as cerebral hypoxia by strangulation and suffocation.
Ashlee Jenae’s mother, Yolanda Denise Endres, told ABC13 that McCann didn’t contact her until 11 hours after discovering Robinson’s body.
“He told me that Ashly did something to herself and she was being taken to the hospital, and he told me she was stable,” Endres said. “I said what happened, and he told me it had been 11 hours prior.”
Her sister Alyssa Endres, 20, described Ashlee Jenae as a vibrant person whose social media presence reflected genuine happiness, making suicide seem “extremely” out of character.
Ashlee Jenae’s final Instagram post, uploaded on April 7, read “Chapter 31 and I’m exactly where I need to be,” accompanied by photos from the trip showing her beaming next to McCann among zebras and wildlife.
Just one day before her death, she posted vacation footage with the caption “If this is a dream, no one wake me up.”
McCann is being questioned as a witness rather than as a suspect, and his travel documents have been withheld pending further investigation.
McCann is the founder of Asymmetric Financial, a crypto-focused venture capital and hedge fund backed by prominent investors Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon.
He’s positioned himself as an advocate for cryptocurrency’s institutional adoption and regularly speaks at major industry conferences.
Ashlee Jenae, meanwhile, had built her platform around documenting what she called a “soft life” philosophy centered on positivity and gratitude, a lifestyle approach that resonated with her growing audience.
Her family released a statement saying they’re placing their trust in Tanzanian officials while seeking clarity about the circumstances surrounding her death.