Tonisha Lashay Barker Memphis COVID test site worker jumps to her suicide death with toddler baby son, Jonathan Jones.
A suicidal young mother has died after jumping from a Tennessee highway overpass with her toddler son in her arms, killing them both.
Tonisha Lashay Barker, 26, of Memphis was identified by the victim’s family as the distraught mother who took her life and that of her 21-month-old Jonathan Jones.
According to the Madison County Sheriff’s Department the ‘incident’ began unfolding before midnight on Monday, when deputies received 911 calls about a woman who had attempted to crash into a gas pump at the Shell gas station on Law Road.
Witnesses who called 911 said they observed the woman get out of her car that evening with a small child and walk over to the nearby Interstate 40 overpass, never to return, reported WREG.
A few minutes later, authorities got a call from a truck driver reporting that his vehicle was struck by ‘a large object’ that fell from the bridge.
Mother had recently lost job
Deputies who responded to the scene near Exit 93 found the bodies of Barker and her son.
Sheriff’s spokesperson Tom Maples told WKRN deputies are now trying to determine what might have motivated Barker to end her and her son’s lives.
The woman’s grandmother said she had been depressed in recent days. Her job at a COVID-19 testing site had ended last month.
Barker’s death is being classified as a suicide and Jonathan’s death is under investigation.
The identity of the child’s father wasn’t immediately known.
