As has been already noted, we don't really know because neither Shakespeare or his contemporaries told us.
However, we do know that Shakespeare's contemporaries loved this kind of story and they read and watched (at the theatre) many of them.
One of the favourite sources for such stories was Ovid's ancient poem 'Metamorphoses', written in the 1st Century AD by a Roman poet. In that poem there is a story of tragic love which Shakespeare would have known very well and probably used as a source for Romeo and Juliet.
Ovid's story is of the young lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, which ends with up with the young man Pyramus killing himself because he believes his lover, Thisbe, to have been killed by a lion. She has been hiding and returns to find him dying, and is so distraught that she kills herself with this sword.
We know Shakespeare loved this story because he used it in another of his plays 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. In this play a group of simple folk act out a comic version of the story.
As I said, it seems that stories of true love destined for a tragic end were very popular at that time.
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