Couple Jumps Off George Washington Bridge Hand-In-Hand — To Protect Their Shocking Secret

A couple from the upstate village of Suffern, New York, leaped hand-in-hand to their deaths Monday, off the George Washington Bridge, connecting upper Manhattan to New Jersey. At first, police were unable to identify the couple who ended their lives together in spectacular fashion, because they carried no identification when they took their fatal plunge.

But within 24 hours investigators not only learned who the suicidal lovers were, but why they took their own lives — and it was a secret too terrible to contemplate.

Gary Crockett, 41, and 40-year-old Nicki Circelli were pulled from the waters of the Hudson River at approximately 11:40 am on Monday, about a half-an-hour after they apparently jumped from the upper level of the bridge. A witness said they held hands as they took the 212-foot drop to the rushing waters of the Hudson.

Though Crockett had a key to a Chevrolet vehicle in his pocket, no vehicle was found on the bridge.

Rescuers fished them out about 1,000 yards south of the bridge. Both Crockett and Circelli were alive when they were recovered and paramedics performed CPR as the couple were rushed by ambulance to St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan. But their suicide pact proved successful as the pair were pronounced dead with one minute of each other.

Police finally figured out who the jumpers were when they learned their horrifying secret. Not long before deciding to kill themselves, they murdered Circelli’s uncle in the Suffern home they shared with him. The couple smothered the man after reportedly stealing money from his bank account and burglarizing his home, stealing among other items, an AR-15 assault rifle.

The couple reportedly both had criminal records. What, if anything, they were planning to do with the assault weapons will never be known for sure, because according to a note they left at the home, they felt so remorseful about the murder that had committed that they preferred to end their own lives in a highly dramatic and public setting.

The double suicide was the second in two days by a couple in New York state. On Sunday, Earl and Mary Myatt, both 59, stood on the tracks in front of a speeding freight train, apparently because Mary Myatt was not recovering from a brain aneurysm that left her unable to care for herself.