A bereaved bride-to-be accidentally killed herself after believing she could go “halfway” to heaven to say a final goodbye to her dead best friend.
Jazmine Howarth, 25, claimed she could control death and meet up with her best friend and mother of one Dionne Corbett who had killed herself just weeks previously, before returning “to the land of the living”.
The young woman from Radcliffe was found hanged in a community garden just two weeks after her best friend had killed herself.
Jazmine’s childhood friend Dionne, 25, had also hanged herself at her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, on February 26 following a battle with depression.
The inquest heard that Dionne’s death had left her friend devastated with the women having been best friends since they were toddlers.
The pair had even talked about getting pregnant at the same time so they could “go through it all together” with Jazmine writing a string of letters saying she wanted to see Dionne for “one last time” before coming back so she could “carry on with her life”.
Coroner Lisa Hashmi ruled “death by misadventure”, saying she did not believe Jazmine had meant to kill herself.
She said: “I have no doubt that the loss of her close and very dear friend in very tragic circumstances would have had a profound effect. She attended the chapel of rest to say her goodbyes. I believe she would have found that cathartic.
“They had been of course very close, described as sisterly. Both had had conversations about what the other would do if one lost another, it may have underpinned her actions, but I could not say for sure what bearing, if any, it had.”
But she said the letters left behind from Jazmine, showed the young woman had a “superstitious mind” and believed she could return.
She said: “What I can’t ignore are the letters, whilst it may be that some of them were drafted in the days before her death, described as a superstitious belief in Jazmine’s mind, a number of letters were found that suggested that Jazmine wanted to speak to Dionne for one last time.
“That she believed she could meet Dionne and return to the land of living. What I believe was a failure to appreciate how quick one could die. She had a mistaken belief that she could just pass beyond and return. Quite clearly that was a mistake on her part. It’s probably the naivety of youth that resulted in her sad, tragic and untimely death.”
Family and friends had previously told the inquest that Jazmine had agreed to speak at the funeral of her best friend.
But they said they had no indication that the young woman was planning on taking her own life on March 11.
Her aunt said: “We actually thought that she was much more settled than she had been in a long time. Obviously when her friend Dionne died she was absolutely devastated and the day before Jazmine took her own life she went to say goodbye to Dionne in the chapel with her mum. But there was no indication to her mum that she was thinking of joining her.
“The letter to her mum indicated that what ever she intended to do she thought she could control it. She was very much planning for the funeral, she was looking at reading, planning for that. I know nobody ever expects it but we weren’t – it wasn’t even on our radar.”
Jazmine’s fiance Brendan Cawley said: “They classed each other as sisters, one wouldn’t do without the other. She broke down crying saying, ‘Yeah but I promised I would go and get her’.
“She said that she wanted to go and see her, go halfway to make sure she was alright. Two days before she died I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at Jazmine, she was writing on a piece of paper, I said, ‘What are you doing?’. She said, ‘Nothing, it’s stupid’. I thought in my head that it must be something to do with Dionne.”
He said he had woken to find Jazmine writing down the words from a TV signal that was tuning in and out with the 25-year-old saying she was writing down the words in case it was a message from Dionne.
He recounted the moments before the love of his life killed herself.
Mr Cawley said the couple had argued with the young woman running off and locking the door behind her.
He said: “I think she kind of expected me to save her.”
- The Sun UK
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