A little more than three days after she last spoke to her fiance and the father of her two young children, Miah Turner remains desperate to find out how he wound up dead in a Raleigh electrical substation.
Cohen was the brother of Chicago Bears running back Tarik Cohen.
“This man was loved by so many and this has affected so many,” Miah (pronounced MY-AH) Turner told The News & Observer in a Facebook message Tuesday. “My girls will never see their father again.”
She’s insistent that police uncover why Tyrell Cohen, 25, ran from the scene of an accident, according to friends who were with him, and into nearby woods before winding up in that substation where a Wake County Sheriff’s Office news release stated “it’s believed the man died of electrocution, while attempting to climb some of the equipment.”
“I will get to the bottom of it,” Turner wrote to The N&O. “He did not just run from the cops to his death and everyone is going to stop putting this image out about my baby.”
So far, other than the 911 call released to The N&O following a public-information request, no accident report or incident report from law enforcement has been made public.
‘Each investigation is unique and the time it takes for it to publicly post varies,” N.C. Highway Patrol spokesman First Sgt. Christopher Knox said in an email to The N&O.
In the meantime, Turner’s had to tell her young daughters, Jeriah and Trinity Cohen, their father is gone. She and Tyrell Cohen’s family, including his twin brother, Chicago Bears running back Tarik Cohen, are planning his funeral.
“I am making arrangements for my love,” Turner wrote. “I have to be an amazing mother to our kids. Do you know how hard it is to tell a 7 and 3 year old their daddy isn’t coming home ... ever? Do you know how hard it was to hold my 7 year old while she’s screaming out ‘Not my daddy! Not my daddy!’”
‘HE WAS OUR SUPERMAN’
Turner and Tyrell Cohen had been together nine years and had two children with hopes for a third, Turner wrote to The N&O.
Engaged to be married, they hoped to live in a four-bedroom home in the country with a playroom for their daughters, Turner wrote.
“He provided for us, he loved us, he made sure no one did us wrong,” she wrote. “He was our Superman. He always called me a Superwoman because of all I do for him and our girls.”
An interview request submitted to Tarik Cohen’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, was declined. But the NFL player posted a statement on Twitter about his brother’s death.
“I lost my brother, my twin, myself,” Tarik Cohen wrote. “What a great man he was. I’m glad I got to express just how much I love him while he was here. God truly calls home the best and most worthy. I’ll just miss him forever.”
A LATE-NIGHT CALL TO 911
Cohen was out with friends Friday night at Hero’s Pub and Sandwich Shop, on Six Forks Road in Raleigh; Turner told The N&O she FaceTimed with him around midnight.
At 1:57 a.m. Saturday, Turner spoke to Cohen for the final time.
Shortly after that, Cohen and his friends were involved in a car accident near Interstate 540 and Six Forks Road, according to statements Turner made to police and the 911 call recording obtained by The N&O.
“We do not know what caused the accident as of now,” Turner wrote to The N&O.
It’s unclear who was driving the car, which Turner told the 911 operator was registered to Cohen’s mother.
Cohen’s license was revoked as recently as April, when he was cited for driving while his license was revoked, court records show. He had multiple recent citations for driving while his license was revoked and was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 2019.
In the 911 call Turner made at 10:16 p.m. Saturday to report Cohen was missing, she told the operator, “his friends said he was running off to the woods, but that’s unlike him.”
Cohen had been in a 4-wheeler accident a few months ago, Turner wrote to The N&O Tuesday, and was still recovering.
“He wasn’t all the way right yet,” she wrote.
So Turner is mystified as to how Cohen was able to scale the fence that surrounded the substation.
“Him climbing the fence doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “I know this man. He was just trying to come home to me and his family, that’s all. My baby was scared.”
COHEN’S PHONE STILL AT THE BAR
Around 3 a.m., about an hour after she spoke to him on the phone at Hero’s, Turner awoke to find Cohen was not at home.
“I know I woke up for a reason,” she wrote to The N&O. “It was him waking me up. He was telling me something wasn’t right.”
She called his phone, but someone at Hero’s answered and said the phone had been left at the bar.
“I knew something was wrong,” Turner said Tuesday.
According to sheriff’s office spokesman Eric Curry, Raleigh police looked for Cohen early Saturday morning before calling off the search. He was found shortly after 9 a.m. Sunday by a Duke Energy employee at the substation near Lead Mine and Six Forks roads.
“My baby will forever be with me and our girls,” Turner said. “He was an amazing father.”
