On Wednesday, a family was due to meet for dinner at Jasper’s restaurant in Prince George County, Maryland.
The Upper Marlboro family did not know that the evening would end in tragedy.
– A woman of the family went to the bathroom and when the others were ready to leave she had not yet returned, says one of the owners, Fred Rosenthal, at NBC News.
She tells the newspaper that one of the family members went to see her, and that she was later found dead on the bathroom floor.
– Our employees have been notified. They rushed around and called the police, who arrived within minutes, Rosenthal continues.
The woman died of natural causes, writes the NBC.
He kept the doors open
Jasper’s did not close its doors after the accident.
Instead, they continued to welcome guests in what is described as a “full restaurant”, while the dead woman lay in one of the bathrooms.
Instead of closing the restaurant, a curtain was hung around the women’s bathroom, where the family gathered in mourning. The men’s restroom became a functioning unisex restroom during the evening, NBC writes.
– We didn’t know it would take two hours to remove the body, so that’s hindsight, the owner told NBC.
He says they tried to make everything “as respectful as possible”:
– If we had known what we know now, we would have stopped welcoming guests, he comments.
Spread on the floor for more than two hours
The death was reported at 6.40pm on Wednesday evening.
It wasn’t until around 9pm that the body was taken out of a side door so as not to disturb the other guests.
Jasper stayed open until midnight. The body then remained on the bathroom floor for over two hours while new guests poured in.
Jasper’s owner Rosenthal met with the woman’s family members afterwards.
– They came to us to celebrate and to organize a family reunion. It ended badly, she concludes.
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