Lowell Hawthorne, 57, CEO and founder of the widely popular Jamaican restaurant chain Golden Krust is dead.
Reports reaching the The Gleaner indicate that Hawthorne committed suicide shortly after 6 pm EST in New York.
Many of Hawthorne’s colleagues and friends are reeling with shock with the news and were unable to comment. Early reports say Hawthorne killed himself at the main office in New York with two bullets to the head.
“Mr Hawthorne is a huge success story in the Jamaican Diaspora and we are all deeply disappointed that this could have happened”, Trevor Smith, marketing executive at Tower Isle Foods and a longtime friend of Hawthorne said.
The founder of the Caribbean food empire was also the chairman of the American Foundation of the University of the West Indies (UWI).
Hawthorne has been the recipient of numerous awards both in Jamaica and in the United States for his philanthropy and his entrepreneurial genius. In 2000, he won the coveted Entrepreneur of the Year award from the accounting firm Ernst & Young, and over the years he has been celebrated in numerous newspapers, magazines and television shows for his accomplishments.
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