Three sisters of Nigerian descent who were found dead in the sea off Brighton in the United Kingdom took their own lives, an inquest has ruled.
Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, had been living together in Greenford, London, and led what the coroner described as “very secluded lives” following the death of their mother, who drowned in 2010.
Senior Coroner Penelope Schofield told the inquest that the sisters had travelled to an area of Birmingham on May 11, where their mother had died, before travelling to Brighton the following day.
Their bodies were recovered from the sea in the early hours of May 13 after they entered the water at Brighton beach in adverse sea conditions. The coroner said the three sisters could not swim.
Schofield said the sisters were “incredibly private”, adding that the circumstances surrounding their decision remained unclear.
“These three sisters lived very secluded lives, they were incredibly private, we don’t know why they took this course of action or indeed why they chose to do it in Brighton,” the coroner told the court.
Their father, Joseph Jacobson, who attended the inquest by videolink, described the deaths of his three daughters as an unimaginable loss.
In a written tribute, he said: “To lose all three of my precious daughters, Jane, Christina and Rebecca, is a heartbreak beyond anything I could ever have imagined.”
Jacobson said he struggled to understand why his daughters’ lives had ended so suddenly, adding that he hoped they had been reunited with their mother “in God’s eternal care”.
(Linda Ikeji Blog)
