US airhostess ends life in Mumbai hotel

A US citizen who was serving as an air hostess with Delta Airlines hanged herself using a curtain inside a bathroom at the Hotel Taj Mahal at Colaba late on Wednesday night, say the Colaba police.

The victim, Merlyn Dunston, 50, a California-resident, had checked in to the hotel on Tuesday with a few other crew members. RB Gaikar, an inspector with the Colaba police station, said, “An employee called us up after Dunston wouldn’t open the door to Room 311. Since she was supposed to check out around midnight the same day, the employee grew suspicious.”

When the employee along with the police opened the room with a duplicate key, he found Dunston lying on the bathroom floor with a curtain wrapped around her neck and blood oozing from her head. Her body has been sent to JJ Hospital for a post-mortem.

A handwritten note addressed to her mother was found beside her bed and read, “Mom, I am mentally frustrated.” The police say that she had tried to write four other suicide notes before tearing and throwing them in the dustbin. Dunston’s mother had been ill for long, they added.

Gaikar said probe revealed that Dunston had entered the bathroom at 10pm and tied the curtain around her neck. Due to the increased load, the curtain rod had broken off, causing her to fall on the bathroom floor. “She sustained severe head injuries, which may have caused her death,” he said.