Husband tells of wife's death in Phuket
Goldman Sachs Asia-Pacific vice-chairman and former Law Society president Tim Freshwater still isn't clear how his wife of 27 years fell to her death at a five-star resort in Phuket last weekend.
'We still don't know whether she slipped or whether she fainted or whether she sat on the edge of the handrail ... She might have sat on that and then fallen backwards, but we just don't know,' he said.
The pair were at the Amanpuri in Phuket, Thailand, to attend a wedding. Judy Freshwater was returning alone to their room after dinner on Saturday night when she fell.
Her husband stayed to say goodbye to friends. He left 10 minutes later, but she was nowhere to be found.
After an hour-long search, the woman's body was found in a garden 31/2 metres below an elevated walkway that runs between the resort's restaurant and its rooms.
A medical report said her neck broke and she died instantly, but it is not known what caused her to fall.
Her husband told police she was diabetic.
Police classified it as an accidental death, the resort said.
Judy Freshwater, 65, was born in China and raised in Burma and Singapore, before she went to Australia, where she got citizenship.
Her husband was formerly a partner at law firm Slaughter and May, chairman of investment bank Jardine Fleming and president of the Hong Kong Law Society. He is also on the board of Grosvenor Asia-Pacific, Swire Pacific and Cosco Pacific.
Tim Freshwater is due to retire from Goldman's board by the end of the year. He announced his retirement just days before his wife's death. He returned to Hong Kong with the body on Sunday.
Under her obituary on the website of British paper The Times, it said: 'Judy and I were such fun-loving friends in the '70s ... what a gem she was - may she rest in peace.'
