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Jan 29, 2015 News
-was ill, spoke repeatedly of killing self
Patricia Lowton lived with her daughters in a new and neatly-built wooden house in Grove New Scheme, East Bank Demerara.
But she suffered from a prolonged and painful condition that rendered her unable to work and so depressed was she that she spoke repeatedly of taking her own life.
At around 15.30 hrs last Tuesday, two months shy of her 59th birthday, Lowton walked half-way across the Demerara Harbour Bridge and jumped to her death.
Her body was recovered about an hour later near the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard wharf at Ruimveldt.
Lowton’s daughters viewed the bridge’s security camera footage late Tuesday and saw their mother on the structure.
They positively identified her body yesterday morning at the Lyken Funeral Parlour.
One of Lowton’s daughters said that they last saw her alive at around 08.15 hrs on Tuesday when she left the family’s Lot 366 Golden Grove home. According to the daughter, the woman’s son had planned to take her to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for a blood test.
“But she said she ain’t able wait and said she was going out. I ask her how long (she would be gone) and she said she was coming back ‘just now’, and asked the neighbour to watch the house.”
They had expected her to be back at noon, and when she didn’t turn up, the son called his sisters.
On learning that she hadn’t returned home, the son and other siblings tried to locate their missing mother.
“We keep looking all over; we checked the hospitals, we checked at Brickdam and Providence Police Stations and asked if they had any report of a missing person
and they said no,” one daughter recalled.
“We come home and say that we would make a report at the Diamond Police Station and same time my friend say that somebody fall in the river and that the person dark in complexion and look young.
“When we go at the Harbour Bridge they ‘run’ the cameras and we see her; and this morning we go to identify the body and it was her.”
According to one daughter, their mother began to show signs of mental illness after her husband passed away some time ago. She also suffered from a physical ailment that rendered her unable to work. Mrs. Lowton had repeatedly told her children that she was ‘fed-up’ of living with her ailment. She repeatedly expressed suicidal thoughts and had come close to throwing herself in the Demerara River the day before she took her fatal plunge.
“Monday morning I go to take her to the hospital. She was crying out for pain. She say she feeling tired.
“She said that she wanted to go (to the hospital) by herself. When I came home she say, ‘I went to the stelling at the back of the (Stabroek) market and I go to jump in, but they had too many people so I turn back.’”
“She said she want dead; she fed-up living; she can’t work, she can’t do nothing for sheself and is best she go home.
“She talk about stabbing sheself and throwing sheself under a car. I would say ‘mommy’ bear up, yuh birthday coming up (in March)’ and she would say no, she want to go ‘home’ and rest.”
It was at around 15.30 hrs on Tuesday that police ranks stationed at the bridge received an anonymous call that a woman was standing at the edge of the bridge in the vicinity of the retractor span. There are no rails in that area.
”We got a call saying a woman is standing on the bridge at Span Eleven on the southern side and the word was ‘she looks like she wants to commit suicide,’ so immediately we sent out the security,” General Manager of the Demerara Harbor Bridge Rawlston Adams said.
A policewoman rushed to the area in a vehicle and saw the woman, now identified as Patricia Lowton, clutching a bag and standing at the edge of the structure.
The rank called out to Lowton who reportedly turned to look at the policewoman, before jumping overboard.
Ranks from the Police Marine Branch at Ruimveldt scoured the waters for the victim, before finding her at GDF Coast Guard wharf at Ruimveldt base.
It was on December 24, last, that 34-year-old Felicia Hussein climbed onto the rails of the Demerara Harbour Bridge and jumped into the deep waters. Her lifeless body was recovered some 45 minutes later.
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