The founder and CEO of Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill who once appeared on “Undercover Boss” killed himself inside his Bronx factory Saturday, police sources said.
Via NY Post:
A family member told detectives that Lowell Hawthorne, 57, admitted the huge tax debt to some of his relatives, and was “acting funny” and “talking to himself” in the hours before his suicide, a law-enforcement source said Sunday.
Surveillance video shows the meat-pie mogul shooting himself in the head at his office inside the Golden Krust bakery and warehouse in The Bronx, said the source, who was briefed on the NYPD investigation into the shooting.
Before the shooting, the video shows Hawthorne speaking with a pair of workers who left the room, both of whom were crouched down when they later returned to his office, sources said.
It was unclear if they saw Hawthorne kill himself but one of them could be seen making a cell phone call, which a source said was to 911.
Hawthorne employed dozens of relatives at the business he started in 1989, and the source said he left a note in which he apologized to his family.
Hawthorne’s younger brother, Milton Hawthorne, 55, met cops who arrived at the Golden Krust plant at 3958 Park Ave. around 5:15 p.m. Saturday in response to a 911 call about an emotionally disturbed person armed with a gun, sources said.
Lowell, a married father of three sons and a daughter, was found on the floor of his office with a single bullet wound to his head and a handgun lying nearby, sources said.
The Jamaican immigrant started Golden Krust with a single fast-food eatery on East Gun Hill Road in The Bronx and opened 16 more across the city before launching a franchise operation in 1996.
The company now has more than 120 outlets in nine states, and sells its beef patties in more than 20,000 supermarkets, as well as to the city school system, state penal system and US military, according to a news release issued last year.
Al Alston, who befriended Hawthorne 30 years ago when they were both NYPD accountants and now owns a Golden Krust franchise in Queens, called his suicide “more than unexpected — it’s out of character.”