A TEENAGE girl appeared ‘jovial and chatty’ on the way home from a play rehearsal just a few hours before taking her own life, an inquest has heard.
The inquest into the death of Kezia Mason heard that the 14-year-old had spent what appeared to be a normal weekend prior to being found dead in her bedroom by her father shortly before she was due to leave for school on Monday morning.
Police coroner’s officer Samantha Rawlinson said Kezia had attended a rehearsal for Matilda the Musical on the Sunday afternoon, after which a friend’s father had dropped her back to her home in St Helier.
In a statement, the friend’s father [name given in court but direction not to identify friend] said that Kezia had been joking with the others in the car and made them laugh. The topics of conversation had been ‘ordinary’, he said, adding that in retrospect he could not think of ‘anything out-of-the-ordinary or worrying’ about the discussion.
The inquest heard that while there had been some concern about Kezia suffering what was described as ‘teenage angst, depression and stress’, there was no indication – either before her death or afterwards – that she had been contemplating suicide.
In a statement read to the inquest, Rob Mason said he had taken a meal to his daughter on the Sunday evening, as she was staying in her room to reduce the risk of catching Covid from her mother Esther and brother Ben, both of whom had tested positive for the virus.
PC Rawlinson said that Mr Mason had then found Kezia at around 7.30am on Monday 7 March, when she failed to respond to his message that it would soon be time to leave for school.
Relief coroner Cyril Whelan said he was ‘certain in the highest degree’ that Kezia had died as result of suicide, formally recording his finding that Kezia had ‘taken her own life while suffering anxiety, low mood and depression’.
