Photo Courtesy of Instagram/ Taleah Lowe
Shirley McCurty, the grandmother of Taleah Lowe, a student at Grand Valley State University who drowned in Lake Michigan, raises questions about her death after the young woman was allegedly warned about going near the water.
According to FOX 17, McCurty reflected on one of the last conversations she shared with her granddaughter.
“I said, ‘Don’t go out there on the lake ’cause you’ll mess around and drown and won’t nobody find you,’” Shirley recalled during a Zoom interview on October 19. “And she said, ‘Grandma, you’re crazy and started laughing.”
Despite Lowe taking it as a joke, McCurty reportedly knew that she had not taken the warning lightly.
“She would never go near the water. She loved the beach. You would never see her in the water, but you would see her on the beach,” said Taleah’s aunt Angela Lane. “She would never get in the water, and she made it known to people that was close to her that she could not swim. She could not — she would not — get in the water. She had a fear of it.”
Lane said that the young woman had feared the water ever since she was a little girl. Lowe had gone to the beach with two white schoolmates from Grand Valley State University – Rachel Paulsen and Chloe Ward.
However, on October 15, Lowe’s body was found in the water Pere Marquette in Michigan.
“We want people to know that Taleah was a very bright, intelligent, smart, fun, loving, outgoing girl,” Lane said. “We also want people to know that Taleah could not swim. She had a disability, partial paralysis in her left arm from birth.”
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McCurty said that Lowe had a disability that made her partially paralytic on one side of her body, which wouldn’t allow her to move on of her arms fully.
Lowe’s family mentions that this is one reason why they suspect there’s more to the story about what happened the night before her body was found.
On October 14, police said in a news release that they were sent to report to Pere Marquette around after getting a call about a “swimmer struggling in the rip current.”
Lowe’s family also said that another reason her death is suspicious to them is that a GoFundMe account they discovered was created the night she disappeared and has now been taken down.
“They started a GoFundMe for my sister without any of the family’s consent, not even two hours after Taleah was found,” Taleah’s older sister, Breyana McCurty, said.
Lowe’s family made their own GoFundMe which will cover funeral expenses and help them hire a private investigator.