A British coroner has ruled that three sisters who drowned in the sea off Brighton took their own lives.
Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, had been living together in Greenford, London, and were described at an inquest as leading very secluded lives following the death of their mother, who also drowned in 2010.
The sisters travelled to Birmingham on May 11, visiting an area associated with their mother’s death, before travelling to Brighton the following day.
They arrived at Brighton seafront by taxi at 10:21 p.m. on May 12 and were later seen on CCTV walking along different parts of the east beach.
They were last seen alive at about 2:42 a.m. on May 13. Their bodies were subsequently recovered from the sea.
Senior Coroner Penelope Schofield said the sisters had drowned in difficult sea conditions and noted that they could not swim.
The inquest heard that police searching Christina’s laptop found 227 references to water and 179 references to suicide. She had reportedly experienced anxiety and depression since their mother’s death.
The coroner said the three women were “incredibly private” and that it remained unclear why they had chosen to end their lives in Brighton.
“It is not for the court to speculate and sadly these reasons may never be known,” Schofield said.
Postmortem examinations found no drugs or alcohol in the sisters’ systems, while there was no evidence that they had been subjected to violence.
Jane was brought ashore by an RNLI crew and pronounced dead at the scene. Christina was recovered by an RNLI lifeboat, while Rebecca was found washed ashore on Brighton beach. Both were also pronounced dead that morning.
Their father, Joseph Jacobsen, said the loss of his three daughters was heartbreaking.
In an emotional statement read to the inquest, he described them as beautiful and intelligent women and said he could not understand why their lives had ended so suddenly.
“There are no words that can adequately express the pain of losing a child,” he said.
“To lose all three of my precious daughters is a heartbreak beyond anything I could ever have imagined.”
He said he hoped his daughters had been reunited with their mother “in God’s eternal care”.