Three sisters who drowned in the sea near Brighton beach died in a suicide pact a day after visiting the lake where their mother took her own life, a coroner has ruled.
Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, from west London, were pulled from the water off the Sussex coast early on May 13. The siblings, described as 'inseparable' after their tragic deaths, never got over the loss of their mother, relatives said.
Visit to Birmingham lake
All three had taken a taxi from their home in west London to the Birmingham street where their mother lived on May 11. They arrived at Linton Walk, near to Brookvale Park Lake, at 11.36pm and were picked up to return to the flat they lived in together in Greenford at 1.28am on May 12.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cullimore told their inquest at Woodvale Coroner's Court in Brighton that there was no CCTV to see what the women had been doing in the time they were in Birmingham.
Events leading to the drownings
On the evening of May 12, they took a pre-booked taxi to Brighton and arrived near the seafront at 10.21pm. They are thought to have last been seen alive on CCTV from the beach at 2.42am on May 13.
Ms Adetoro was brought to shore by an RNLI crew and declared dead at the scene on the morning of May 13, the inquest heard. Christina Walters was recovered from the sea by an RNLI lifeboat, and Rebecca Walters was washed on to the shore of Brighton beach. They were also declared dead that morning by paramedics.
Coroner's conclusion
Concluding the inquest into their deaths, senior coroner Penelope Schofield told the court on Thursday: 'On May 13, in hours of darkness, they entered the sea at Brighton, they could not swim and sea conditions were adverse.'
A post-mortem found all three women had drowned and cited no evidence of any drugs or alcohol in their bodies, and no evidence to suggest they had been subject to violence. The coroner concluded that the three sisters intended to end their lives.
'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,' Ms Schofield told the court. 'It is not for the court to speculate and sadly these reasons may never be known.'
The inquest heard Christina Walters suffered from anxiety and depression since her mother's death, but Ms Adetoro was not registered with a doctor, and Rebecca Walters' records had nothing of note, Mr Cullimore said.
Family's grief
Speaking to reporters after the sisters' deaths, their aunt Ajike Johnson revealed they never got over the trauma of their mother's death. Their mum, Janice Adetoro, suffered with mental health issues and walked into a park lake close to her home at the time in the West Midlands.
The sisters' aunt Ajike Johnson – or Aunt Jik as her nieces called her – told the Daily Mail the tragedy 'traumatised the girls', adding: 'They never recovered.'
Their cousin, Natalie Walters-Daniel, also said there was a 'deeper meaning' behind the sisters' journey to Birmingham. She told the Sunday Times that her cousins were 20, 16, and 15 when their mum died.
'To lose their mum at the ages that they were, it was the crucial stages of growing up and becoming young women,' she said. 'The years where a mother's presence and guidance and reassurance and love should be, they didn't receive that. And for them to come to Birmingham, to take that moment that they did within the lake and also to see their mother, I think that there is definitely a connection there.'
