Jamaica Observer Associate Editor, Special Assignment Ingrid Brown died last night after ailing for a few months.

Brown passed away shortly after 9:00 pm at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), where she was admitted last week suffering from the effects of an autoimmune condition that affected her liver.

Her family was by her bedside.

Brown came to the Observer from the Jamaica Information Service in 2006 as a reporter and rose through the ranks to the position she held at the time of her passing. Before that she worked at The Gleaner and the Star newspapers after starting her journalism career at the Jamaica Herald as a trainee reporter in 1994.

She recently completed her law degree at the University of the West Indies with second class honours, despite her illness, and was accepted at Norman Manley Law School.

In fact, she attended orientation last week, but on Wednesday started feeling ill again and was taken to UHWI.

Last night, Observer Managing Director Danville Walker expressed condolence to Brown’s family and said she will be “sorely missed by the newspaper’s staff who all loved and respected her”.

“Ingrid was the kind of journalist that any media house would be proud to have on staff,” Walker said as he reflected on her body of work over the years which have won her a number of awards.

Her drive to help people and unearth news from across the country made her the perfect person to start then Observer North & East, a fortnighly publication focusing on St Thomas, St Mary and Portland.

Brown spearheaded that publication, travelling to the target parishes every other week while studying law and only stopped when she first became ill in March.

Observer Executive Editor – Publications, Vernon Davidson agreed. “Ingrid was not only an excellent journalist, she was a wonderful human being who always cared for the less fortunate,” he said.

“She had told me more than once that while she loved journalism, she wanted to become a lawyer in order to help victims of abuse in particular,” Davidson added.

Many of the stories Brown wrote resulted in people in dire need getting help from readers, private sector companies and the State.