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London - A woman was found drowned in a hot tub at her family home three days after she went missing.
Ella-Louise Tunney, 26, accidentally fell in during an epileptic fit as she prepared the water on a summer’s day.
When her father, Lee, realised she was missing he and other family members began scouring the area – and passed the hot tub numerous times during their search.
But it wasn’t until three days later that her body was found floating in the water when police lifted up the tub’s lid, which is thought to have been blown shut by the wind.
Miss Tunney, who worked for a finance firm in London, had changed into a bikini and painted her nails while she prepared the hot tub to share with a friend on June 23 last year, an inquest heard. But the friend did not turn up, meaning Miss Tunney was alone when she toppled in.
She had suffered with epilepsy since her teens, but kept it under control with medication until November 2017.
But the condition worsened and she suffered blackouts – once having to be dragged out of the bath by a colleague during a work trip.
When she disappeared on June 23, Mr Tunney assumed she was asleep in the annexe she lived in at the family home in Eton Wick, Berkshire.
When she also failed to appear the next day, he thought she was out watching the World Cup with friends, despite having left all her belongings at home.
It was only when police searched the Tunneys’ home that she was discovered.
Mr Tunney told the Reading inquest: "Ella asked me to set the hot tub up. I went out and when I came back there was no sign of anyone. I assumed Ella was tired and had gone to the annexe to sleep it off."
On the Saturday she died, she had texted friends, saying: "Chilling in the hot tub."
Her friend Hannah Hinton told the inquest: "She would binge-drink on a Friday night. A combination of working so hard and the drinking and the epilepsy just wiped her out."
Recording a conclusion of accidental death, Emma Jones, assistant coroner for Berkshire, said: "I find the hypothesis that she fell into the hot tub after an epileptic fit to be the most realistic."