After a daughter's fatal fall from a downtown building, a mother searches for answers

On June 18, Josephine Goodman got off work early from her job as a massage therapist at a downtown Anchorage day spa. A summer solstice festival had taken over blocks of downtown, and the 22-year-old wanted to take part.  

At 5:45 p.m. she texted her mom a picture of herself and the words "cotton candy and face paint watched cute skate boarders perfect day."

Ada Goodman offered her daughter a ride home later. Josephine said no, she'd be fine.

But Josephine was not fine.

At about half past midnight, she either jumped or fell from the top of a seven-story parking garage onto the sidewalk in front of the Downtown Transit Center.

The medical examiner ruled her death a suicide.

For her mother, grief was muddled with bewilderment: How could her daughter go from texting her the words "perfect day" to suicide in a matter of hours?

"I could not grasp how she went from that to about six hours later deciding to take her own life," Goodman said. "It did not make sense."

She found the answer had everything to do with alcohol.

Four months later, she is ready to tell the story of how quickly her daughter's life was blotted out by a single evening gone far off the rails.

It's hard to talk about. But Ada Goodman thinks it will be worth it if it somehow shines a light on the blurry line between intoxicated recklessness and self-harm.

Josephine grew up in a steady two-parent Anchorage home, with an older sister and brother.

She had a sensitive soul and a lifelong tendency to side with underdogs of all kinds. At age 7, when her dad told her he'd give her a dollar if she collected a mouse from a mousetrap in the garage she responded that she wouldn't be taking his "blood money."

In addition to underdogs of the human variety, Josephine related to actual dogs. She was known for acting on her impulse to take care of animals, though she was seriously allergic. One of her mom's favorite pictures of her shows her donning goggles and elbow-high gloves to care for a cat in need of a wash.

She had what her mom described as an exotic beauty and quirks that endeared her to people. She played Tomb Raider with her dad so much she got the license plate "TMBR8R" in homage, and collected what her mom estimates to be hundreds of pairs of shoes. She didn't care if they didn't fit — she'd just stuff some tissue in the toe.  

After graduating from Dimond High School, Josephine had struggled to find her footing, but had recently found meaning in a career as a licensed massage therapist.

Josephine came off as outgoing but had fought what her mom called "the demons in her brain" since she was in elementary school. She'd been hospitalized for depression several times, and had been under the care of a psychiatrist.

On June 18, Josephine didn't seem in danger to Goodman. In the past, she had always come to her mom during times of worrying depression. They'd tackle the problem together. Binge drinking had recently led to problems in Josephine's life: Lost jobs and a DUI.

But drinking to excess usually was not a path to darkness for Josephine. When she drank, she became bubbly and talkative. It was her escape from what was going on in her brain, Goodman said.

Using credit card receipts and surveillance footage she requested from downtown businesses, Goodman began to reconstruct what happened to Josephine in the hours before the fall.

She learned that in the hours that followed their last text exchange, 5-foot-2, 113-pound Josephine bought five mixed drinks from one downtown bar. Around 10 p.m. she purchased a small box of wine from a liquor store. In footage from inside the liquor store Josephine is smiling and appears to be conversing with the cashiers.

Then she bought another drink at a different downtown bar.

Goodman doesn't know if she was with anyone else. She believes her daughter was out drinking alone.

Surveillance footage recorded just after midnight showed Goodman taking an elevator to the top floor of the seven-story parking garage above the transit center. She was alone. The video footage recorded her unsteady on her feet and falling several times in the elevator.

It was a windy night, with National Weather Service data recording gusts reaching 40 miles an hour in West Anchorage around midnight. There was no surveillance camera on the top floor of the open parking garage. Police say there's no evidence anyone was up there with Josephine.

Goodman also learned that her daughter had been profoundly drunk when she fell.

The State Medical Examiner Office report listed her blood alcohol content at .281, more than three times the legal limit for driving. At that level of intoxication, a person's sensory functions are severely impaired. People lose consciousness suddenly. With a BAC of .281, Josephine was close to the threshold where a person would be turned away from the Anchorage jail for safety reasons, and instead admitted to a hospital.

Goodman began to believe that her daughter had not jumped to her death, but had climbed the waist-high barrier to watch the sunset and passed out. Sunsets were important to her, Goodman said.

Today, Goodman sees Josephine's death as much as the result of binge drinking as of depression. She believes Josephine was served too much alcohol that night, but does not blame the people who sold it to her.

"She willingly drank and paid for all those drinks," Goodman said.

She did not want to disclose the names of the establishments where Josephine drank or bought alcohol, and they are not facing any sanctions or criminal charges related to serving her.

State health authorities are trying to learn more about deaths like Josephine Goodman's. Last year, the state's Section of Epidemiology partnered with the Medical Examiner Office to start a suicide toxicology tracking project, said Deborah Hull-Jilly, a state epidemiologist.

"We want to have a better grasp of how substance abuse plays a role, particularly in cases of self-harm," said Hull-Jilly.

Last year, Alaska saw 202 suicides. Of the total number of victims, 183 were tested for alcohol and drugs. Some 70 percent tested positive for one or more substances.

The line between alcohol-influenced accidents and intentional self-harm is often blurry. Almost one-fourth of suicide victims in the United States are legally intoxicated at the time of death, researchers from Portland State University found. Acute intoxication in females was associated with violent methods of suicide including falling. Younger people were more likely to be intoxicated at the time of death.

"Addressing risks associated with acute alcohol use may be of the greatest aid in the prevention of violent suicides among young and middle age adults," the researchers wrote.

Josephine would have turned 23 on Oct. 19.

Goodman says her family is in pain but grateful for an outpouring of love from the community. These days, she has thrown herself into trying to create something good. She is raising money for a scholarship fund through the Alaska Community Foundation in Josephine's name to pay for a middle-income student to pursue a career in animal care. She calls it "Josephine's Dream." She asked all the businesses that served alcohol to Josephine that night to contribute. None did. Goodman thinks lawyers probably advised them not to, but it stung.

Goodman believes her daughter fell that night because she was drunk. But she has come to terms with the fact that she'll never know exactly what happened in the space between that last text message and the fall. Knowing wouldn't change the fact that Josephine is gone, and what she has to learn to live with. 

If you or someone you know is dealing with depression or a mental crisis, there are many options available for help. Here are a few easily accessible ones.