Drowning death will leave void at Lawrence Farmers Market

Kathleen Garrett won’t be at her regular space this year at the downtown Lawrence Farmers Market.

“She is really going to be missed,” the market’s manager, Mark Jones, said Monday after learning that the 49-year-old Lawrence woman drowned Sunday in a Lee’s Summit, Mo., lake.

Garrett’s body was pulled Sunday afternoon from Lakewood Lake by a rescue crew, Lee’s Summit Police Officer Mike Murray said. Authorities, who had been called to the lake to investigate reports of an unattended child, discovered the floating body.

Garrett’s death was an accidental drowning and there was no further investigation being conducted, Murray said.

Garrett was taken by Lee’s Summit ambulance to Truman Medical Center at Lakewood in Lee’s Summit, a fire department official said. Garrett was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Garrett had been visiting friends in Lee’s Summit and had been walking with a 3-year-old boy she knew, Murray said. The boy was still in the area when the woman’s body was found.

“Because of the boy’s age we weren’t able to get much from him,” Murray said. He said the boy was upset when police and rescue crews arrived.

Friends said Garrett had been coming to the Lawrence Farmers Market for years, most of the time with her father, Bill Garrett. Some of the vegetables and other items they sold came from the farm of Kathleen’s brother, Mike Garrett, which is outside Lawrence.