On March 22, when Mr. Chu’s mother closed the door to the balcony while receiving a call from her second daughter, the elderly woman was talking and laughing as usual. Nothing seemed amiss until the conversation was over.
But when Chu looked for his mother, surnamed Lin, to ask her for instructions on a recipe, she was nowhere to be found, Shenzhen Evening News reported on March 26.
Only when Chu, who resides in Shenzhen of southern China, heard a thumping sound and opened the door to the balcony did he look down to see that his mother had jumped off and killed herself, he told local television reporters.
The space between apartment blocks was only about one meter wide; the thumping sound was made by Lin’s body colliding with the walls and windows on her way down.
