A famed British photojournalist was allegedly stabbed by his 19-year-old son after rushing to Los Angeles to try to help the troubled teen with his mental health struggles, according to his wife.
Paul Lowe, an award-winning war photographer, had grown concerned about his son Emir Abadzic Lowe, who has history of mental illness and been hospitalized several times over the past year for psychosis, when he didn’t return from a trip to the U.S. that was only supposed to last days.
“We were obviously very nervous about the whole situation,” Amra Abadzic Lowe, Emir’s mother and Paul’s widow, told the New York Times.
When the trip stretched to two months, the 60-year-old photographer flew to the Golden State to try and convince his son to come.
The two were driving in the San Gabriel Mountains on Saturday afternoon and stopped to admire the views. Emir Lowe seemed calm, but then he allegedly took out a knife and fatally stabbed his father in the neck, the Times reported.
“As a parent we felt that we could help him. We never would expect this kind of outcome,” Amra Abadzic Lowe said.
Emir Lowe then drove away and crashed his car about a mile down the road, where deputies arrested him on suspicion of murdering his father, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Paul Lowe spent 20 years covering historical events—including the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina—for major publications such as Time, Newsweek and The Sunday Times Magazine.
He was also a professor at the London College of Communication, where his research interests focused on the ethics of conflict photography. In addition to his wife and Emir, he is survived by a 17-year-old son, according to the New York Times.
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