CHEVELY, Manchester — The words in an apparent suicide note left by a retired taxi operator have had a chilling effect on his family after his body was found in a water tank near his home in this farming community last Friday.

“Goodbye, I love you,” is what 76-year-old Everton Stephens is reported to have written in the note, according to his daughter, who said his body was found about 8:00 am.

The daughter, who opted not to be named, told the Jamaica Observer that her nephew found the letter that Stephens left on his bed.

“Because I am doing the roof he was always complaining about stuff that always triggers him off, so in the letter that he wrote he stated that the scent of the lumber was triggering him off and he couldn’t even breathe. He couldn’t even sleep that night,” she shared.

She said he wrote that he couldn’t bear the pain any longer, therefore, he was going for a swim and addressed the letter to her.

“When I opened the letter I told [my nephew] to go down by the football field, because there is a tank there, and when he went down there that is when they saw him floating,” she added.

A police report said detectives are treating Stephens’ death as a suspected case of suicide.

On February 2, 2025, the Sunday Observer reported that last year Jamaica recorded 67 suicide deaths — the highest number in almost 25 years.

In 2023 there were 66 suicide deaths, compared to 63 in 2022, 50 in 2021, 43 in 2020, and 58 in 2019.

The Sunday Observer report also showed that men continue to outnumber women in terms of suicide deaths, with statistics showing that of the 67 lives lost last year, a staggering 61 were men, highlighting significant gender disparity in the country’s mental health crisis.

Last year’s figure was the highest the country has seen since the year 2000, when 77 cases were reported, and 75 cases in 2001.

On Sunday, Stephens’ daughter reiterated her shock at the thought that her father could take his own life.

“I didn’t see this coming, because I came to the house Monday and started the work [on the roof] Tuesday and we were there laughing. I brought him to the clinic and was going through his medication and everything with him. I wasn’t expecting this, but he was always complaining about the pain and like he can’t seem to remember stuff, that is why he called me to go through his medication,” she said.

Andrew Brown, a resident of Chevely, said Stephens, known to his friends as Eva, was one of the first set of taxi operators on the Spur Tree to Mandeville route.

“Eva was a good person, you know. He was one of the original taxi men for Spur Tree, and anywhere my family was he went for them. He was an honest and hard-working man. He got too old for the taxi work, so he was taking it easy now. I am sorry to hear of what happened to him. He shouldn’t have gone out like that,” said Brown.

In the Sunday Observer article Dr Donavon Thomas, founder and president of Choose Life International — a faith-based agency that focuses on suicide prevention and offers grief counselling — urged Jamaicans battling mental health challenges or depression to seek help through the various channels available for counselling.

“We are saying help is available and emphasising that before you pull the trigger or before you make that jump, call the number 888-639-5433 [Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Helpline] or talk to somebody from Choose Life International at 876-920-7924,” he advised.