Experienced skydiver dumped by boyfriend night before jumping to her death
The experienced UK skydiver thought to have deliberately jumped to her death last month had been dumped by her boyfriend the night before, according to a new report.
Jade Damarell — who had more than 400 successful jumps — was killed instantly during her last skydive on April 27 as she crashed into a farmer's field in County Durham in northeast England.
Damarell, 32, was dumped by fellow skydiver Ben Goodfellow, 26, just a day before the fatal jump, the Daily Mail reported.
'The two of them were inseparable,' an anonymous friend told the Daily Mail of the pair, who dated for around eight months.
'They spent all their time together, they didn't really engage with anyone else. They did skydives together all the time.'
'The night before Jade died, Ben called off the relationship,' the friend added.
'He went to work the next day, and that's when Jade fell to her death,' the friend said.
The couple had lived together in a double room at a property rented out to parachutists near the airfield for several months, according to the outlet.
Goodfellow was also a technician at Nissan and the lead guitarist and vocalist for indie band Post Rome, which cancelled a gig shortly after Damarell's death due to 'unseen circumstances,' the outlet said.
Police said Damarell's death is 'not being treated as suspicious' — and the company she jumped with said that 'all indications from the police and British Skydiving are that this was a deliberate act taken to end her own life.'
A friend previously told the Daily Mail that 'everyone is devastated and deeply traumatised' by the 32-year-old's death because 'she was very much part of the skydiving community'.
'She was mad for the sport,' the unidentified friend said. 'In just the two days before she died, she did 11 jumps. She must have done 80 this year.'
At least one person witnessed Damarell jump to her death, according to the outlet.
The local police department, the Durham Constabulary, said: 'Her death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will now be prepared for the coroner.'
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