Dramatic weight loss was not cause of death of Thatcham woman

An inquest has heard a mother describe her daughter as a “crazy, funny, bubbly” person, but one that had “lost her spark”.

Kaylee Cox – better known as Kay – died of natural causes in August last year following a dramatic weight loss.

She was found in the bathroom at her family home on Baily Avenue in Thatcham, where her sister began to deliver CPR.

Police and an ambulance attended the scene and medics took over issuing CPR – on August 30 – but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ms Cox was her mother’s best friend but following the loss of her grandmother in 2021 her personality began to change, her inquest heard.

“She was still funny,” said her mother Christine Cox, but she told the inquest that her daughter became weak as she started to have problems with food.

The 30-year-old Thatcham woman struggled keeping her food and drink down and within a year she halved in weight, the inquest was told.

She dropped from 137 kilos (21 stone) to 74 kilos (11 stone) in a year, in what assistant Berkshire coroner Ian Wade called a “phenomenal loss”.

Ms Cox couldn’t swallow for a few months and felt like things wouldn’t get down to the stomach, the inquest heard.

Everything came back up and even keeping water down was a struggle, it was told.

“It started getting really bad,” her mother said. “Clothes would hang off her.”

At seven-years-old Ms Cox was 31 kilos and by the age of 16 she had become 118 kilos, but doctors could not find anything wrong with her, medically, and all tests came back clear.

She had a gastroscopy, which came back normal.

The inquest heard that it was suggested – by doctors – that Kay had an eating disorder or anorexia.

But her mother disputed this and said she was worried that doctors were not taking her daughter seriously enough.

The post mortem examination also revealed very little and her cause of death was recorded as being natural but unknown.

The inquest was told that there were no drugs or alcohol in her system and a there was a very low level of Fluoxetine.

But the coroner said there was “nothing abnormal” found.

“She was the best daughter you could ever ask for,” her mother told the inquest.

“She was the other half of me.

“She was my best friend.”