Beloved animal rescuer Mikayla Raines spent what would tragically prove to be her final evening alive looking forward to the future.
The founder of Save A Fox Rescue, who had recently turned 30, sat down to dinner with her mother, brother, and three-year-old daughter in Lakeville, Minnesota. They shared shrimp cocktail, one of her favorite meals, and she opened a gift from her brother: a quirky hooded sweatshirt zipped all the way up.
‘Oh my gosh! This is so cool,’ Raines said, beaming. ‘Next time I go on a plane, I’m not going to have to bring a blanket to put over my head – I can just wear this hoodie.’
But, within hours, Raines’s jovial mood darkened. Her husband, Ethan Frankamp, told the Daily Mail he could see something was ‘eating away’ at her as they got into bed that night.
So concerned was he about her suddenly downcast demeanor, Frankamp stayed up most of the night, holding her close, counting her breaths, and offering words of comfort when he felt she needed them.
‘I just wanted to make sure she was okay,’ he said. ‘But sometimes when you’re hovering over someone, you can make their mental health worse… and she expressed to me that she wanted some alone time.’
Respecting his wife’s request, Frankamp went to lie down in a different room. An hour later, he went back to check on Raines and discovered she had taken her own life.
Panic set in. He frantically called 911 and tried in vain to perform CPR but it was too late.
‘I wish I hadn’t given her any alone time because she might still be here,’ Frankamp said through tears. ‘I try not to play the “what-if” game… but it keeps me up at night.’
Raines died on June 20. The news was announced by a devastated Frankamp in a raw 12-minute video posted to Save A Fox’s YouTube page three days later, which has since been viewed more than 1.6 million times.
In the footage, Frankamp revealed that Raines had struggled for much of her life with depression and borderline personality disorder. She had also been diagnosed with autism.
Her mental illness and cognitive condition made her prone to episodes of deep, sometimes inexplicable sadness. Often, he said, the storms would shift as quickly and mysteriously as they had arrived.
But recently, Raines had been struggling more than usual. The cause, her loved ones believe, was a relentless barrage of online abuse – not just from anonymous trolls but from fellow animal rescuers she once trusted as friends.
The attacks were increasingly personal and geared towards sabotaging Raines’s reputation, livelihood and self-worth.
They began on Reddit, where anonymous users accused Raines of hoarding and mistreating animals, and profiting from her sanctuary – claims her family denies.
For years, she tried to block the abuse out. But, just as Raines had begun to get a handle on it, that same vitriol spilled on to other platforms, amplified by peers who she knew and admired.
Her mother, Sandi Raines, told the Daily Mail: ‘She would just sit in my kitchen and say, “Mom, why do I make a friend, a really good friend that I feel like I can talk to about anything, and then they turn around and stab me in the back?
‘I’m positive that’s what actually brought her further over the brink than anything had ever brought her before… that really was the last straw.’
Frankamp agreed, saying that the betrayal from those within the animal rescue community – people Raines had supported, trusted and even, in some cases, helped fundraise for – hurt far more than the usual anonymous hate.
‘It cuts a lot deeper than just a random stranger online,’ he said. ‘She just felt like the whole world was against her.’
Raines found it difficult not to hyper fixate on the negative feedback, even amid the sea of positive comments she regularly received from her millions of followers, Frankamp and Sandi said.
‘She would get caught in these loops,’ he said. ‘Her brain would replay one comment or message over and over again until it just ate away at her.’
Sandi witnessed similar behavior. ‘The good things didn’t stick in her brain,’ she said. ‘The dark stuff always took over.’
Both believe that the tormentors were driven by jealousy over Raines’s prospering business and growing public profile.
‘I think they saw her doing well and were probably frustrated they weren’t able to accomplish the same things on the same scale that she was,’ Frankamp said.
‘I think they saw her candle burning really bright, and they believe putting out her light would help make their candle burn brighter. Jealousy is a terrible thing.’
Raines’s work with Save A Fox came at an immense personal cost long before her death.
Compounding her already fragile state, were the emotional demands of running a nonprofit rescue center while trying to be a wife and mother.
She disliked posting online and having to constantly document her life on social media, Frankamp and Sandi said, but knew it was a necessary evil to keep her business afloat and the rescued animals alive.
Raines founded Save A Fox in Rice County, Minnesota, in 2017, intent on saving foxes from the fur trade industry. Over the past eight years, she saved thousands, founded a second location in Lake County, Florida, and also opened the refuge’s doors to all kinds of creatures in need, from coyotes to ponies.
In the months before she died, Raines had been working with a fur farmer to rehabilitate and rehome 500 foxes that would otherwise have faced certain death.
According to Sandi, Raines spent about $1 million last year moving 400 foxes from the farm and ensuring they received medical care. About 100 foxes remained in need of care at the time of her death.
Frankamp said that Raines would not sleep through most nights, preferring to get up to check on the animals.
For each rescued creature that couldn’t be rehabilitated, she would mourn the loss like the death of a family member.
‘She felt everything so deeply,’ he said. ‘If a fox died, even if it came in barely clinging to life, she took that personally. She never forgot any of them.’
But she also never attempted to romanticize the realities of running a shelter, nor did she shy away from discussing the emotional toll it took.
In a social media video shared with her more than two million followers in December 2024, Raines said she didn’t think she ‘can handle it’ any more after the death of one of the rescue’s beloved foxes, Felix.
‘When I was younger and a fox would pass away, obviously I would take it really hard, but I would bounce back,’ she said. ‘But I think just like all the trauma of loss over the years, like I’m just not bouncing back any more.
‘I don’t feel passion or happiness or drive to keep going. I just feel a lot of pain.’
Despite her struggles, neither Frankamp nor Sandi believed Raines would take her own life.
Raines always insisted that she would never leave her daughter, Freya – a promise she repeated to her mother more than once.
‘She had been through these mental health crises so many times but she always told me she’d never leave this world with Freya still here,’ said Sandi.
‘She loved her family so much. She loved a little differently because of her autism and mental illness, and she had her ups and downs, but her family and the animals are what made her calm.’
Frankamp added: ‘It was an emotional rollercoaster. The highs were great, and she would be doing fantastically, but the lows would dip so fast and hard that suddenly she’d be in a pit, and it was really hard for her to see that she’d come out the other side.
‘It was always a fear of mine that one day it would go too far, but it’s one of those things that you also don’t think could ever actually happen.’
Breaking the news to young Freya that she would never see her mommy again was the hardest thing Frankamp and Sandi said they had ever done.
The finality of the tragedy has been difficult for her to grasp. But, at the same time, it’s her bright personality – and striking resemblance to Raines – that is keeping the rest of the family going.
As Frankamp struggles to come to terms with the scale of his loss, his sorrow is increasingly mixed with anger, particularly towards those he holds responsible for pushing his wife over the edge.
The family is declining to name names, knowing that Raines wouldn’t want her tormentors to be subjected to the same alleged abuses she endured.
Frankamp declined to comment when asked if he would pursue legal action in any criminal or civil capacity. Instead, he offered a direct message to her bullies in a hard voice.
‘I hope they’re overwhelmed with guilt,’ he said. ‘To push someone who was trying to do something good this far… I hope they’re scared. And I hope they learn to just keep the negativity to themselves.
‘You never know what someone’s going through,’ continued Frankamp. ‘Even if they’re smiling, they might be in the worst place of their life. Words matter. And if you don’t have anything kind to say, just don’t say anything at all.’
For now, Frankamp said he is haunted by the image of his wife’s lifeless body in their bedroom – a memory that replays in his mind every time he closes his eyes, before another sleepless night begins.
But even amid the devastation, he counts himself grateful to have known and loved Raines, a true ‘one of a kind’ who was selfless in all that she did.
‘I have received thousands of messages of love and support, and I guess the thing I keep thinking is, “I wish Mikayla could see this.” I wish she could see how many people cared for her.
‘And I hope she can see it still. I hope she knows that she was a really loved person.’
Her mother agrees. ‘She didn’t think she was special,’ said Sandi. ‘But everyone around her knew that she was.’