Crime & Safety
UPDATE: Novato Woman Identified After Suicide Shutdown Southbound Highway 101 Monday Morning
After an apparent suicide shut down southbound highway 101 Monday morning, the body was identified as a woman from Novato.
By Karina Ioffee
The woman who took her own life Monday morning by jumping off the Atherton Avenue overpass has been identified as 55-year-old Novato resident Sally Marie Kinn, according to the Marin County Coroner’s Office.
Shortly after 7am Monday, Kinn drove her car onto the overpass, got out and walked over to the other side of the railing, according to the CHP.
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Kinn struck a car on northbound Highway 101, causing a two-car accident. One driver was taken to a hospital and treated from shock. All northbound lanes were closed to traffic until 10 a.m. and traffic was snarled for hours as CHP officers responded.
The incident has shocked Novato residents and commuters, some of whom had driven on the overpass just minutes before Kinn’s fall. One Patch reader said her daughter had seen the woman on the overpass as she walked to school and had made eye contact with her.
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Attempts to reach Kinn’s family were not successful Monday evening and little is known about what may have prompted the woman to take her own life.
If you or someone you know is despondent and are thinking about suicide, help is available locally. Family Service Agency of Marin County runs a24-hour a day suicide prevention hotlineand can be reached at 415-499-1100.
Northbound lanes of U.S. Highway 101 in Marin County have reopened following the death of a woman who fell or jumped to her death from an overpass in Novato this morning, a California Highway Patrol officer said.
The incident was reported around 7:20 a.m. below the Atherton
Avenue overpass at Highway 101.
The woman's body was struck by two northbound vehicles after she landed on the four-lane highway in the area just before the Novato Narrows, CHP Officer Andrew Barclay said.
One of the two drivers suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital, Barclay said.
Although CHP officials initially said Highway 101 was shut down in both directions, only the northbound lanes of the highway were closed.
Traffic was diverted onto Atherton Avenue, then back onto northbound Highway
101, Barclay said.
The northbound lanes of the highway reopened around 10:05 a.m.,
according to the CHP.
There is a sidewalk two feet below the Atherton Avenue roadway and
a 3- to 4-foot railing on the overpass, Barclay said. There is no ledge on
the other side of the railing, he said.
By Bay City News Service
An apparent suicide briefly shut down U.S. Highway 101 in both directions in Novato Monday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Shortly before 7:20 a.m., Highway 101 was shut down after a body was found near Atherton Avenue, CHP officials said.
CHP Officer Ron Simmons said the case was an apparent suicide.
Southbound Highway 101 has since reopened in the area but northbound lanes of the highway remained closed, according to the CHP.
Motorists are advised to use eastbound state Highway 37 to Lakeville Highway as an alternate route around the area.
Simmons said there was no estimate yet for when the highway would reopen.
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