Daily Mail

To those who saw me like this, I am sorry. People should not have to see dead bodies here

Girl’s apology for her St Paul’s death plunge

- By Tom Kelly and Inderdeep Bains ÷To contact the Samaritans, call 116 123 or visit www. samaritans.org

A TALENTED student left a note apologisin­g to visitors who saw her 100ft death plunge at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Lidia Dragescu, 23, was clutching the message when she fell from the Whispering Gallery inside the dome.

The devout Christian, who regularly worshipped at the cathedral, was carrying a second note for her family, apologisin­g and thanking them for their love.

Miss Dragescu, who came to London from Romania five years ago with her mother and brothers, had already completed a business degree before starting bio-medical studies last month. She wanted to be a brain surgeon.

In the letter to cathedral visitors, she said: ‘To those who saw me like this, I am sorry. People should not see dead bodies when coming here. I’m sorry for showing you this ugly sight. Please go and be happy about your lives.’

Her mother, Isabela, 44, said: ‘She went to St Paul’s at least once a week, we would go together every Sunday. When she was alone she would go there by herself when she wasn’t happy. It was her favourite place in the city, she loved it there and we often climbed those stairs up to the Whispering Gallery.

‘I do not understand, she was different, she was very kind and she was the definition of good, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. She didn’t have friends but she was kind, selfless and did everything for her family.’

Her family thought she was heading off to study when she took a bus from her home in Romford, east London, to the cathedral last Wednesday.

Mrs Dragescu said: ‘She left to attend university at 9am and said “Bye mum” and I said “God bless always”.

‘She seemed normal but when she didn’t answer my call later I became concerned.’

She texted her daughter but received no answer. Miss Dragescu’s parents divorced when she was a teenager and her constructi­on worker father lives in Bucharest.

The rest of the family came to London for better educationa­l prospects and Miss Dragescu completed a business degree at the London campus of Ulster University. She set up a recruitmen­t company with her mother and ran a website called ‘ Knowledge is Our Duty’ crammed with quotes from Einstein and TS Eliot.

Her mother said: ‘Her books are all still here on the shelf, Sigmund Freud, Rudolf Steiner, Voltaire. Lately she had not been to St Paul’s too often because she had been very busy, she was very stressed. She was a ten-outof-ten A-grade student, she desperatel­y wanted to be a brain surgeon and was mesmerised by the brain.’

Miss Dragescu, who was studying at the University of East London, had recently started compiling a file about the Zodiac Killer. The unidentifi­ed murderer struck seven times in America during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

She had also been reading Dan Brown novels.

‘I have lost my best friend, I don’t have any tears left,’ Mrs Dragescu said yesterday.

‘She was not happy in this world. I just want her back, she had her whole life ahead of her.’ Miss Dragescu had a twin brother Vlad and a younger brother Gabriel, 16.

The family said in a statement: ‘Our daughter and sister was the most beautiful person in the world. Her heart was pure and kind, a soul from another world. She was an outstandin­g student and a talented figure skater. Beautiful, intelligen­t and kind.

‘Her love for us was beyond measure, she was selfless and kind. For Lidia, the world has been a bad place to live in.’

City of London Police are not treating the death as suspicious. Mrs Dragescu granted the Mail access to her daughter’s two last notes.

‘Not happy in this world’

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