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She loved life
Wherever Yvonne went there was fun and laughter, recollect her family and friends who are yet to come to terms with her brutal death in a luxury apartment

By Marisa de Silva
“She enjoyed every minute of her life!” said a close friend of Alanska Yvonne Jonsson, the teenager whose death in the early morning hours of Friday, July 1 at the plush Royal Park condominium at Rajagiriya sent waves of shock and horror through Colombo society.

The pretty 19-year-old, a former student of Colombo International School had left school after her Advanced Subsidiary Level (A/S Level) exams last year and gone on to pursue her passion for fashion designing, at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, U.S.A., last December. Having crossed over to the U.K. from Philadelphia to join her parents for a week’s holiday, they had all returned home together on June 26. Five days later, Yvonne’s body was found on the stairway of her apartment block after a night out with friends.

The daughter of a Swedish national, resident in Sri Lanka and a Sri Lankan mother, Yvonne was the elder of two girls. She was known for her fun-loving, carefree spirit, bubbly personality, bright cheerful smile and her willingness to help those in need. Also known for creativity and flair for art in school, she had studied classics for her A/S Level exams.

Both girls, having been born in Sweden, were still quite young (aged 5 and 2½ respectively) when they moved to Sri Lanka in 1990. They were brought up and educated here and could speak Sinhala very fluently, said Yvonne’s father, Roger.

“Yvonne would always look after her younger sister…they were best friends!” said her mother Chamalka lovingly. She had been quite a proficient swimmer in school, remembers her mother, whilst adding, that she had in fact won many certificates for swimming.

A typical teenager, she loved to hang out with her friends and watch movies with them. “Our children’s friends were always in and out of our house and our house was always open to them,” said her mother.

“We used to all crash at Yvonne’s place after going out in the nights and just chill out,” said one of Yvonne’s friends. If ever they were hungry in the middle of the night, Yvonne was the one who would always end up making something for her friends to eat, she recalled.

One of the sisters’ favourite pastimes was to watch the sunset at Galle Face. Both girls found this sight quite breathtaking, says sister Caroline. Yvonne had also loved to sunbathe, she added. She had always wanted to grow her thick, brown hair very long and had been thrilled by its current length.

‘Kiri Hawa’, Yvonne’s milk white Persian cat was her 19th birthday present from her sister. Almost as though sensing her loss, her beloved pet had slept on top of her coffin for the three nights it was kept in the apartment, said her mother.

On the fateful night just before leaving in her jeep to a nightclub in Colombo, the two sisters had met their father in the kitchen. Yvonne had asked him, “Papa, how do I look?” to which he had replied “Your clothes don’t match!” Not in the least bit concerned by this comment, having acquired quite a reputation for her unique dress sense, Yvonne had been quite satisfied with her outfit of leopard-printed tights, black strap top, silver tie-up top, orange earrings and brown shoes!

“She would always stand out and make people look her way,” remembers Caroline. Yvonne’s mother recalled how she and her two daughters would always share their clothes, shoes and accessories as they were all the same size.

“Yvonne was always a unique dresser. Even if she wore the same thing, she would wear some sort of accessory with it to make it look different and tasteful,” recalled a friend. “She would wear a tie-up top or a scarf around her waist or something to add colour to her outfit.”

“She was always so energetic and funny, that you couldn’t help feeling good when you were around her. She could always make you laugh,” said the friend.
“We would be still laughing about some joke of ours, way after the jokes had ceased to be funny to our friends anymore,” said Caroline sadly.

Her striking looks saw Yvonne even doing some modelling. In 2002, she appeared on the cover of the Satyn magazine. “Even in school, she used to be always selected by the teachers to play the part of the angel in school nativity plays,” recalled her friend.

The two sisters were very close, said the friend and were at one point even considering getting identical tattoos done.Yvonne was in fact not to return to Philadelphia but on her sister’s urging had decided to study at least one year at the American National College in Colombo with the idea of transferring to the London College of Fashion to complete her degree.

Yvonne met with her untimely death, just before her twentieth birthday, which was to be celebrated in August. Her family now hope to take a huge cake with 20 lit candles, food and clothes to an orphanage.Yvonne had been her confidante, said Caroline. “I didn’t just lose my sister last week but my best friend too…”

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