DALLAS (AP) – The recent death of a Dallas woman who had received injections at a salon to expand the size of her buttocks follows other cosmetic-related deaths in Texas and around the country that authorities say were caused by people who either weren’t licensed or who injected substances not approved by federal regulators.
The family of Wykesha Reid, 34, says she died after visiting the salon on Feb. 18, her fourth time for a cosmetic procedure. What happened in the hours after the final injection remains unclear, but police responding to a 911 call found her body the next morning at the business. Dallas police have charged two salon workers for not being licensed for the injection procedure.
“Everybody else got big booties,” Reid’s mother, Patricia Kelley, told The Dallas Morning News. “So she wanted a big booty.”
Liquid silicone is not approved for many uses by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so doctors often won’t perform buttocks injections. Other legal procedures can be pricey, so those seeking to modify their bodies often seek out cheaper ways to obtain a desired shape. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says tallies are not kept on complaints stemming from black-market injections, deaths from the procedures have been reported in recent years in California, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York and elsewhere.
A notorious case in Philadelphia ended earlier this month with the murder conviction of a madam-turned-faux cosmetic surgeon. Prosecutors in the case said strippers, transgender women and “regular girls” who sought injections at “pumping parties” and airport hotels were young and vulnerable. And in December, a South Texas woman was sentenced to three years in prison for the death of a customer injected with liquid silicone at the woman’s spa. Prosecutors say Elva Navarro admitted she didn’t tell the victim that similar injections had caused health complications for other customers.