A 15-year-old girl fell to her death off of a fire escape in Tribeca while trying to retrieve her cell phone. Imogen Roche was attending a house party when she tried climbing through a window into a locked room to find her cell phone when she fell.
The Daily Mail says that Roche, a sophomore at Beacon High School, was attending a party on Reade St. at West Broadway when she climbed out around 11 p.m. onto the fifth-floor fire escape, where she slipped. The New York Police Department said she landed on the sidewalk below on her back and was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where she died.
Police are investigating to see if drugs or alcohol were involved, and they are talking to the owner of the apartment, the parent of Roche’s friend. A parent of another Beacon student was shocked to hear of the accident, remembering the victim as a kind girl.
“Oh my God, Imogen. She was very talented and super smart. She’s an actor, she dances. And she’s an only child. Oh my god, she’s beautiful. She’s tall. She has a wonderful, infectious personality. She’s so nice to people.”
Neighbors at the Tribeca building were shocked at the tragedy in their building.
“It’s a super tragic situation. It was kind of mind-blowing to find out that someone had died right outside my apartment.”
Neighbors watched as emergency workers responded to the address where the party was taking place in an effort to save Roche, reports the local CBS affiliate. Files Sifuentes, who works across the street, was saddened by the accident, but wondered what was going on at the party, and why a 15-year-old was there.
Barbara Spitzer, who used to live in the building, says that she would never have gone out on the fire escape.
“My apartment had fire escapes. I was on the third floor. I never went out there. I would never go out there. Poor thing.”
Gothamist reports that the owner of the apartment, the mother of Roche’s friend, was out of town, and according to the police, her child threw a party.
“Imogen was trying to gain access to a locked room through the window when she slipped and fell, landing on her back on the sidewalk, cops said. She had left her cell phone in the locked room. The owner of the apartment was out of town, and some of the teens at the party were drinking.”
