Bride-to-be died trying to get ‘ halfway to heaven’ to meet friend
A BRIDE-TO-BE accidentally hanged herself as she tried to go ‘ halfway to heaven’ to say goodbye to her dead best friend.
Jazmine Howarth, 25, thought she could ‘control’ death and meet mother- of- one Dionne Corbett before returning ‘to the land of the living’.
But 24 hours after visiting her friend’s body in a chapel of rest, Miss Howarth was found dead in a garden near her home by her fiance Brendan Cawley, 23.
Investigators found letters revealing how she wanted to see Miss Corbett, 25, once more to make sure she was OK, before coming back to ‘carry on with her life’.
A coroner said Miss Howarth had failed to appreciate how quickly she would die. An inquest heard unemployed Miss Howarth, who lived in Radcliffe, near Bury, died on March 11 – two weeks after call- centre worker Miss Corbett hanged herself at her home in Bolton following a battle with depression.
The women had been best friends since they were toddlers.
There was nothing to suggest Miss Howarth was also thinking of taking her life, the inquest, in Heywood near Manchester, heard on Tuesday. Her aunt, Michelle Howarth, 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. 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 that she was thinking of joining her.
‘The letter to her mum indicated that whatever she intended to do she thought she could control it. She was very much planning for the funeral, she was looking at a reading, planning for that. I know nobody ever expects it but we weren’t – it wasn’t even on our radar.’
Mr Cawley said that 48 hours before Miss Howarth died he had woken in the night to see her writing something down, saying she thought interference on their TV was Miss Corbett trying to talk to her.
‘One wouldn’t do without the other,’ he said. ‘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 all right.’
Recording a verdict of death by misadventure, coroner Lisa Hashmi 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.
‘What I can’t ignore are the letters. Described as a superstitious belief in Jazmine’s mind, a number of letters were found that suggested that she 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.’