The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

ONLOOKERS gathered around the scene of a “disturbed” woman whose body was pulled from the water off Arawak Cay after she is believed to have committed suicide yesterday morning.

Eyewitnesses claim the woman was seen wandering around Arawak Cay, acting strangely and telling locals she was searching for her children. They later spotted her lifeless body floating in the water.

Supt Ashton Greenslade spoke to the press at the scene and said the unidentified woman, believed to be between 25 and 30 years old, was first seen by witnesses around 8.30am.

“An eyewitness observed a young female walking here along the bridge, clad in blue jeans, a white blouse and bare feet,” he said. “She walked at the end of the bridge here – at the eastern area, and dived into the waters. The eyewitness immediately alerted the police (and) officers from the Arawak Cay police station responded.”

A reserve officer dove into the water and brought the victim to shore a few feet away from where she is suspected to have entered the water, Supt Greenslade said.

“She is now deceased. Investigation into this matter continues. Foul play, not suspected,” he said, before adding, “at this time, we’re classifying this death as a suicide.”

An eyewitness, who works in the area, but did not want to be named, was among a group of onlookers at the scene who said she saw the victim alive at a nearby restaurant before seeing her again, floating in the water – dead.

The victim, she said, “wasn’t in the right state of mind” and was in the water for around 15 minutes before police arrived.

“Early this morning she came over by the breakfast place over there and you could see that she wasn’t in the right state of mind – she wasn’t normal. She was moving stuff off the tables and the guy asked her say, ‘What you doing?’ and she say, ‘I’m looking for my kids’,” the witness said. “But now I didn’t hear when she said ‘I’m going to kill myself’.

“She left and she walked over here, she went somewhere in the back by where the jet skis are. But couple minutes after that we hear she went over into the sea. Now I guess the guys over there saw her go into the water, but one other guy said she swim over there, but I don’t believe that because anyone could see she was weak. When I went to look over the bridge, she was out – dead. That was it.

“I was stunned,” she added, “because I didn’t believe it. It was too fast that’s how it seemed to me.”

Explaining her earlier comment about the victim revealing that she was going to commit suicide, the witness said she did not personally hear her say that – but others claim they did.

The witness added that the victim seemed “weak” and “definitely” appeared to have some sort of mental health issue, again telling the press: “I knew she wasn’t in her right mind.”

Lakeisha Ingraham, a waitress at The Little Hut, the restaurant where the victim was seen, also said she could tell “something wasn’t right” with the woman when she entered.

Rather than weak, her impression was that the victim seemed “very alert” and frequently made direct eye-contact.

Ms Ingraham also told of an encounter the victim had with another patron when she apparently searched for her children behind the restaurant’s bar.

“She walked straight behind the bar and the gentleman (a customer) asked me if I knew her and I said, ‘No I don’t’ so he said, ‘Miss, what are you looking for’ because she was looking for something and she said, ‘I’m looking for my children’ with a smile on her face,” Ms Ingraham said.

“He said, ‘Your children are not behind there, come from behind there’ and so a lady’s food was sitting right on the edge and she touch the food and say, ‘This food for me?’ And he say, ‘No, that’s not your food come from that – go that way.’”

Ms Ingraham said the victim started to leave at this point, but had left items behind that the other patron asked her to take with her.

“She had a Dunkin’Donuts cup in her hand and a paper – she left it right there and he said, ‘No take your garbage with you.’ She left the cup, but she carried the paper with her. She went by the table and start gathering all the garbage and I was watching her trying to figure out what she was doing,” she said.

“After that, she left the stuff and... when she walked that way, there was a truck that was coming and I saw the truck just stop suddenly and heard traffic back up and I was like, I hope she ain’t do nothing stupid. Then a lady from off the beach came here to buy breakfast this morning and she was like, ‘One lady just walk inside the beach and kill herself’ and then I come to find out she was in the back there, floating in the water.”

Ms Ingraham said she had never seen the woman in the area before. When asked about reports of the victim saying she was going to end her life, she said: “She didn’t say anything about killing herself, because if she did obviously we would have just gone and reported it.”