The coroner’s office concluded that a 36-year-old Rosemead woman who jumped from a pedestrian bridge at the Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park in 2018 after losing custody of her young sons died of severe fractures and lacerations to her organs, an attorney for her family said Thursday.
Lawyer Michael Carrillo said Shin Wu’s fall was at least 20 feet. Carrillo is representing Wu’s relatives in a wrongful death/negligence lawsuit filed against Los Angeles County on Monday.
Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County, declined to comment on the case.
The plaintiffs in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit are Wu’s father, Chien-Tung Wu, and her two minor sons. The children’s father is acting as their guardian during the court proceedings.
The woman took her own life last Aug. 24, shortly after a hearing in which she was unable to regain parental custody of her boys, according to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
“As a result of the loss of parental rights to her minor children, (Shin Wu) was overcome with emotions and suicidal ideations that she was unable to control and (she) jumped to her death from the bridge located at the Edelman Children’s Court,” the complaint says.
The Department of Children and Family Services had taken the mother’s children away from her a month earlier, according to the suit, which says county officials had been on notice since June 2018 that a social worker assessed that she had mental health issues that included bipolar disorder and severe depression.
In the first week of August, social workers called law enforcement about Shin Wu’s mental state and she was detained and hospitalized for a week, the suit says.
“Due to the lack of necessary mental health care that was required for (Wu), the decedent was alone and without help or support during the court procedures of family reunification,” the suit alleges. “Decedent was placed in a position that dramatically increased her suicidal ideations, causing her to jump to her death, because of the negligent acts of the defendants, causing the minor (children) to lose their mother.”