Former Sen. Mitt Romney's sister-in-law left a handwritten "suicide note" in the last pages of the Book of Mormon before she died by suicide last year in Southern California, a coroner's report revealed.
The Los Angeles County coroner’s report did not divulge what Carrie Elizabeth Romney wrote in the note, which was found in a text that is considered sacred by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she had left underneath her purse on the front passenger seat of her vehicle.
An autopsy found that Carrie Romney, 64, had anti-anxiety medication in her system, and her husband told investigators that two years earlier she "had driven her car off a cliff" and "had made comments about not wanting to go on."
The report — completed in December and obtained Thursday by NBC News — comes after the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Department concluded that Carrie Romney's death on Oct. 10 was a suicide, caused by blunt-force injuries after she fell from a parking garage.
Carrie Romney had been separated from Romney's brother, George Scott Romney, since May 25, according to a Los Angeles County divorce petition filed June 10.
Her husband, who is not named in the report, told investigators that on the day his wife died, he reported her missing to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after she left home at 12:30 p.m. "to run errands" and hadn't returned.
But at 7:10 p.m. that day, Carrie Romney parked her vehicle on the top level of a five-story parking garage in the Valencia section of Santa Clarita, a Los Angeles suburb, and was seen on security video — and by a witness — "pacing" and "looking over the edge of the parapet," the report says.
At 8:23 p.m., according to the report, "she is seen to be sitting on top of the parapet, facing the rear of a utility truck with her back towards the sheer side."
Three minutes later, her body hit "the ground."
"Fell backwards from a seated position on a parking structure rooftop parapet," the report says.
Representatives for Mitt Romney, who represented Utah in the Senate from 2019 to 2025 and was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement he released shortly after his sister-in-law died, he said, “Our family is heartbroken by the loss of Carrie, who brought warmth and love to all our lives.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 or go to 988lifeline.org to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
