New York Tragedy: Man Tosses Child From Roof, Leaps To Own Death [Updated]

UPDATE 9:59 am Eastern 12/23/13

New York City police have identified the man who threw his 3-year-old son from a high-rise building, then leaped to his own death, as Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, a Ukranian immigrant who lived in Brooklyn, New York, who was engaged in an acrimonious custody battle with the boy’s mother, Svetlana Bukharina, according to a New York Daily News report this morning.

Just a few months ago, Kanarikov, Bukharina and their son, Kirill, presented the picture of an idyllic young family, complete with smiling, relaxed Facebook photos. But somehow things went sour in a hurry. According to the Daily News report, tensions between the couple were so bad that they would meet at a New York police precinct house to exchange custody of the boy.

Previous reports indicated that Kanarikov carried out the murder-suicide from the 14th floor of the South Park Tower apartment building at 120 West 60th St. in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square, but today police say that the distraught father threw his son from the roof of the 52-story building.

He then jumped from the roof himself. The two bodies landed on separate buildings, adjacent to the 52-story tower.

Though Kanarikov did not live in the building, surveillance video showed him entering the lobby with his son at 11:45 am Sunday and proceeding to the elevators without so much as a question from the building’s doorman.

At 12:05 am, witnesses in the penthouse apartment as well as on the 29th floor saw a body fall past their windows, according to a Daily Beast story on the tragedy.

Original Report:

A man died in New York City today after either jumping or falling from a high-rise building — and taking a 3-year old child with him.

The identity of the man and the toddler have not been released. A report on the New York 1 local news station says that the man was 35 years old and the child, a boy, only 3. Other reports give the child’s age as 4 years old.

One witness report, cited by the New York Post, says that the man first threw the boy from a 14th-floor window of a ritzy Upper West Side apartment tower, and then jumped after the toddler. Both landed on the roof of an adjacent building belonging to John Jay College.

There are conflicting reports on this breaking story, with some witnesses saying the man may have leaped from somewhere above the 29th floor, where witnesses say they saw bodies plummet past their windows, according to The New York Daily News, which also reported that the man was holding the child as he fell.

The child, clad in Christmas pajamas, according to the Post account, was rushed to a hospital, but died there. The man was pronounced dead at scene.

The 52-story building is named South Park Tower and located at 124 West 60th Street, in New York’s upscale Lincoln Square. But according to the Post account, the man and boy did not live in the costly building, where a two-bedroom apartment rents for as much as $6,300 per month.

The call came in to police just minutes after noon.

At St. Luke’s hospital a witness, Luis Ortiz, described paramedics’ desperate efforts to save the small child.

“They were pumping his chest and working on him, and nothing,” he said. “You could tell he was slipping away. They said the father was up there, but they didn’t bring anyone else in. It was just heartbreaking. I have two kids of my own. They tried to do the best they could.”

The New York Post report identified the deceased man and child as father and son, but no other report as of Sunday afternoon had confirmed the relationship between the two.