Two adults in Manhattan have jumped to their deaths in a double suicide after stating that they could no longer afford the financial reality of their lives. Glenn Scarpelli, 53, and Patricia Scarpelli, 50, jumped from the 9th floor of their 17th story office building on 33rd Street between Park and Madison Avenues. They jumped earlier this morning, around 5:30 A.M. The pair left suicide notes and pled for those who found them to ensure that their kids were cared for.
In debt
The pair allegedly killed themselves because they were in a mountain of debt.
Glenn Scarpelli wrote in his suicide note that he and Patricia had had an amazing life together, but that they could no longer cope with their financial realities and woes. A chiropractor by trade, the pair had found themselves in a huge pile of debt that they seemingly could not escape from. It has been reported that the pair did not have medical insurance and therefore they decided to kill themselves because they could not afford their health care. Other sources say that this is not the case and health woes were not mentioned in their suicide note, but instead, simply that they were in a huge pile of debt from unknown sources. This could have been partially due to education or their business not thriving the way they had intended.
Leaving the kids behind
The pair left behind two children who they pled with those who found their bodies to care for them. There did not seem to be a plan in place for the children after their parents had died, and there was not necessarily anything written about the children being cared for by friends or relatives. The Scarpellis wrote in their suicide notes that the children were upstairs when they took their lives, and it is unclear if this means that their apartment was upstairs over their place of employment or if they had already planned their suicide and taken the children to the office to spend the night so they could easily be found the next day by emergency services.
Finding the Scarpellis
The pair jumped to their deaths early in the morning, however as New York City is the city that never sleeps, people were already out and about when it occurred. Several people reported being jarred by the event or scared of what had happened. One woman was terrified as she said she had never seen a dead body prior to the bodies of the couple. Because New York is such a populated city, emergency services were called just minutes after they fell.
