Husband wanted to 'do the right thing by terminally ill wife' before they plunged to their death with their two Dachshunds off 300ft cliff, friends claim

Daily Mail​

10-06-2025

The husband who plunged to his death off a 300ft cliff alongside his terminally ill wife and two Dachshunds had likely wanted to do 'the right thing' by her, friends said today.
John and Lynn King, in their 60s, died instantly alongside their two dogs when their silver Ford Mondeo drove off a cliff close to the Needles on the Isle of Wight on Friday evening.
John worked as a driver for local bus company Southern Vectis, and is understood to have known the routes around the island well.
Friends who knew John, 67, and his 'frail' wife Lyn, 66, said they have been left wondering whether 'what happened was him doing the right thing by his wife'.
Lynn had a 'terminal diagnosis' and was rarely seen out of their home in Cowes, it was said.
Emergency services were called at around 7.20pm on Friday evening to Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight after the car plummeted off the cliff.
Retired bus driver Kevin Parsons, 70, said his ex-colleague and friend John moved to the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago with the intention to retire on the island when he finished his career as a bus driver. 'That was the plan', Mr Parsons said.
Mr Parsons, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, said he worked with John at the Stagecoach Winchester depot 10 years ago for about three years before John started working for Southern Vectis on the island.
He said John knew the private, 'very narrow', road which the car drove off the cliff from very well as it was part of a bus route he used to drive.
Father of four Mr Parsons said: 'I've only met [John] a couple of times.
'I heard the other day somebody said that she had had a terminal diagnosis.
'What it was, I don't know.
'It would have to be something really bad for that to happen.'
Speaking about the speculation that John might have acted intentionally, Mr Parsons said: 'I find it really hard to believe that John would do something like that.
'Having said that, I don't know why he was there.
'Public cars don't go on that road, that's for the people that work up there, the open top bus goes up there, it's a very narrow road.
'He would know that.
'What they were doing there, I don't know.'
Mr Parsons said that John used to drive open top buses on the Isle of Wight, and ''he's been up there enough times on the bus''.
He said: 'You have to keep your wits about it because it's a very narrow road and the last thing you want is to see cars going up there.'
Mr Parsons added: 'It's not like John out of the blue went out there.
'If you're a driver at [Isle of Wight bus company] Southern Vectis, you would know that stretch of road because they train you so much to do it.
'He had the dogs in the car... we always used to joke because he was a very big, tall man, but he had the smallest dog in history.
'No matter what you were talking, if you were onto his dogs, look out - he absolutely adored the things.'
Mr Parsons thinks that John could have had a 'medical incident' which caused the crash.
John had a heart attack a few years ago and was off work for a year, according to his former colleague.
The Kings' rented home is a three-bed terraced home on a street in Cowes, a seaside town.
Two dog ornaments can be seen in the window, as well as a small sign with an illustration of a sausage dog with the word 'dachshund' above it.
A neighbour of the Kings, who did not want to be named, said that when Lynn answered the door to their acquaintance, she only opened it a crack and said that she was 'in all day'.
Of Lynn's appearance, the young man said it seemed as if she had a serious illness.
'Just like, if you had some sort of, feeling rough or bone issues or something I guess', he said.
'I'm only going by my mum really, because my mum used to be like that, frail, she couldn't move her head due to arthritis, that was many years ago.
'I've seen them come out with their dogs sometimes.'
The young man added that the couple were 'quiet', and 'never seemed to be the type that wanted to communicate' so they didn't talk to them.
He thinks he saw the Kings on Friday, before the incident took place.
He said: 'I'm thinking, was that the last time I saw them alive?'
One neighbour only found out that John had a wife after hearing the news about the incident.
The neighbour, a middle-aged man, said: 'He said hello, he would walk along, stroke [my] dogs and occasionally his own barked as well.
'A really nice guy - it's not something any of us would have expected, but like I say they never really seemed [...] his wife, I don't think we knew he was struggling to care for her.'
The man said they heard the couple's two dachshunds 'barking in the morning for their breakfast'.
He thought that John was a 'private man', and said he drove a Grey Mondeo which 'always looked well cared for'.
'I think we all are assuming what happened was him doing the right thing by his wife,' he said.
'Just from, as I say, the few times I would speak to him he would stroke the dog.'
Another neighbour, a young woman, said of John: 'He always wore braces with a blue shirt and grey trousers.
'I've never seen her [Mrs King], but it was really sad last night coming home and seeing an ornament in the living room window - a sausage dog, that's so sad.'
She said she also saw police in the street after the incident.
She wondered whether the incident was a purposeful act - they said: 'I wouldn't call people selfish for doing that [...] but why the dogs?'
Someone else living on the same street, a middle-aged man, said that the couple were 'very quiet' and 'quite elderly' - Lynn was a 'small grey-haired lady'.
He said: 'I only saw her recently, a couple of times a few weeks ago.
'I only ever used to see him just coming and going over to work or doing a bit of shopping, nothing really apart from that, on nodding terms I suppose.'
The couple's family said in a statement released through police: 'We are all devastated and numb from the loss, and would respect some privacy at this time.'
Richard Tyldsley, Southern Vectis general manager, said: 'John King was not an employee of Southern Vectis at the time of his death, having left earlier in the year.
'John had worked for the company as a network driver for two and half years prior to leaving. We are saddened to learn of this tragic event and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.'
A Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: 'We can confirm the death of two people, a woman and a man, aged 66 and 67 respectively, following an incident at The Needles on the Isle of Wight on Friday June 6.
'We were called at 7.21pm after a Ford Mondeo, which was being driven along Alum Bay New Road, left the road, came off the cliff top and came to rest in the water below.
'Two dogs, both dachshunds, were also in the car and died in the incident.
'Formal identification procedures are ongoing, but next of kin have been notified. A post-mortem examination will take place on Tuesday June 10.
'As part of the ongoing investigation into the incident, which has been referred to the coroner, officers have been carrying out inquiries at an address on Arctic Road, Cowes, to help them to establish what happened.'