NEW YORK — A former Playboy centerfold and her 7-year-old son plunged to their deaths from a 25th floor Midtown hotel penthouse early Friday, authorities said.
Former Miss November Stephanie Adams, 46, and her little boy Vincent landed on a roof next door to the Gotham Hotel after the apparent suicide leap, cops said. Mother and child were both dead at the scene.
Police said there was no note left in the room, where the two spent the night by themselves. Investigators were looking for video to determine exactly what happened.
Adams was in the middle of a divorce from her husband Dr. Charles Nicolai, owner of Wall Street Chiropractic & Wellness, according to court documents.
The bodies of the two victims were initially spotted by a guest at the E. 46th St. hotel off Fifth Ave.
“It’s crazy. I don’t know what to say. Nothing (like this) has ever happened here,” said Ilir Krsniqi, 27, a waiter at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse in the hotel for five years.
“One of the guests of the hotel they called the lobby. They said, ‘We saw a dead body,’” he said. “They said one but then they realized there (were) two.”
Adams, who first appeared in Playboy in 1992, checked into the hotel with her son about 11 a.m. Thursday, taking the penthouse room. The two went out the window around 8:15 a.m. Friday.
Officials offered no explanation for the deaths, but Adams had recently sent a number of tweets about domestic violence.
“The only person who should ever be ashamed in a domestic abuse incident is the abuser,” she tweeted on March 20. “Stand tall and stay strong … #NoExcuseForAbuse.”
Krsniqi said he was sent home soon after his shift started and that the restaurant closed for the day.
Word of the tragedy quickly spread throughout the area. Scores of pedestrians and people who work nearby gathered near the front of the hotel.
“It’s horrible. I’m a grandfather myself,” said James Davis, 56, who works at Rockefeller Center. “It’s mental illness. You kill yourself and you kill a child, it’s horrible.”
Adams and Nicolai made headlines in 2014 when he fired a yoga instructor whose good looks threatened to make the former Playmate jealous, according to court papers. The ex-employee sued the couple.
New York City native Adams claimed she was a direct descendant of U.S. President John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
She launched a modeling career at the age of 16, and soon wound up on the pages of Playboy.
Her official online biography said Adams hoped to “enjoy as much of a private life as she can possibly have with her son.”
