Police have named three women recovered from the sea off Brighton beach as sisters Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walter, 32, and Rebecca Walter, 31, after emergency services were called at about 05:45 BST on 13 May. The alarm was raised after a report of a person in the water near Black Rock car park in Madeira Drive, and two more bodies were recovered from the sea nearby shortly afterwards.
Their father, Joseph, said he was left with unbearable grief after the deaths of his three daughters, whom he described as his beloved Jane, Christina and Becky. In a statement, he said no words could fully describe the pain of losing them in the prime of their lives, adding that they had been his joy, his strength and the light that filled the family home with happiness and love.
Sussex Police said an investigation into how the three came to be in the water was continuing. The force said there was no evidence to suggest third-party involvement or criminality, but officers have not closed off the possibility that the women went into the sea from the beach and then got into difficulty. Ch Supt Adam Hays said the inquiry would leave no stone unturned.
The deaths have turned a quiet stretch of the city’s seafront into the focus of a police probe that is now centred on the final moments before the women entered the water. Brighton is a familiar name for visitors and for football readers following local matches, but on this morning it became the setting for a family tragedy that police still have not fully explained.
Joseph’s words gave the clearest picture yet of the scale of the loss. He said each of his daughters was unique and precious in her own special way, that their smiles brightened dark days and their laughter brought comfort, and that though their time on earth was short, the impact they made would remain in the family’s hearts forever. He said they would always be deeply loved and deeply missed.
What remains unresolved is not whether the three women died, but how they ended up in the water together before dawn. Police have said there is no sign of a crime, yet the circumstances are still under examination, and the line of inquiry that they may have gone into the sea from the beach and got into difficulty keeps the focus on the stretch of shoreline where the first report came in.
For the family, the official questions now sit beside a far more personal reality: three daughters from the Uxbridge area of London are gone, and the search for answers is only beginning. Police say they will keep pressing the inquiry until the final sequence is clear.
