×

25-year-old’s fatal jump ruled a suicide

LAKE PLACID – Authorities say 25-year-old Joseph Newman died from intentionally jumping from the roof of the six-story Northwoods Inn Wednesday.

“This fellow has suffered from mental illness for a number of years since childhood, and unfortunately the demons caught up with him,” Essex County Coroner Francis Whitelaw said Thursday.

Whitelaw said he ruled the manner of death as suicide “based on the evidence at the scene, eyewitness interviews and the autopsy results.” Dr. C. Francis Varga conducted the autopsy Thursday afternoon at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake and determined the cause of death to be “multiple blunt-force injuries consistent with a fall from a building,” Whitelaw said. “We are doing toxicology (tests) to determine if drugs or medication played any role.”

It was around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday when Newman was seen falling from the hotel’s roof, landing on the cobblestone sidewalk along busy downtown Main Street. Eyewitness Bruno Morales, a seasonal Lake Placid worker from Argentina, said it looked like Newman jumped intentionally, screaming as he fell. Newman was barefoot despite the cold and snow, Morales noted.

A village police investigation also indicates the death was suicide.

“It doesn’t appear to be accidental,” police Chief William Moore said.

Newman was originally from Louisiana and moved to Lake Placid last year, according to Moore and Lake Placid resident Chris Grant, who owns the apartment building at the top of Mill Hill where Newman lived. Both men said they knew him fairly well before Wednesday and said he had “issues,” which they did not specify. Moore said village police were familiar with Newman from non-criminal matters, on which he didn’t elaborate.

“I would describe him as a nice young man who was struggling with some issues,” the police chief said.

“It’s a sad, sad ending to whatever he was going through,” Grant said. He was a real nice, personable person. … He was basically a harmless person who had issues.”

Grant said that with Newman’s long, dark hair, he looked like famous illusionist Criss Angel, and other tenants of the apartment building called him that as a nickname.

Both Grant and Moore talked on the phone with Newman’s mother in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans, after her son died Wednesday. Grant said he had spoken to her on several occasions before. As a parent himself, he said having someone tell you your child has died must be “the worst phone call in your life.”

Moore said he was one of the officers who arrived at the scene Wednesday right after the fall and performed CPR on Newman, who was still alive but with agonized breathing.

“He later died at the hospital,” Moore said. “I would say they made every attempt to save him at the scene and the hospital, and unfortunately he didn’t make it.

“I don’t think it was thought through,” the chief said of Newman’s apparent jump. “Thank God he didn’t hit somebody else.”

While no one else was physically injured, however, Moore said he knows many other people were emotionally hurt by it. Several local people have told him “they are struggling with what they witnessed.”

25-year-old’s fatal jump ruled a suicide

LAKE PLACID – Authorities say 25-year-old Joseph Newman died from intentionally jumping from the roof of the six-story Northwoods Inn Wednesday.

“This fellow has suffered from mental illness for a number of years since childhood, and unfortunately the demons caught up with him,” Essex County Coroner Francis Whitelaw said Thursday.

Whitelaw said he ruled the manner of death as suicide “based on the evidence at the scene, eyewitness interviews and the autopsy results.” Dr. C. Francis Varga conducted the autopsy Thursday afternoon at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake and determined the cause of death to be “multiple blunt-force injuries consistent with fall from a building,” Whitelaw said. “We are doing toxicology (tests) to determine if drugs or medication played any role.”

It was around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday when Newman was seen falling from the hotel’s roof, landing on the cobblestone sidewalk along busy downtown Main Street. Eyewitness Bruno Morales, a seasonal Lake Placid worker from Argentina, said it looked like Newman jumped intentionally, screaming as he fell. Newman was barefoot despite the cold and snow, Morales noted.

A village police investigation also indicates the death was suicide.

“It doesn’t appear to be accidental,” police Chief William Moore said.

Newman was originally from Louisiana and moved to Lake Placid last year, according to Moore and Lake Placid resident Chris Grant, who owns the apartment building at the top of Mill Hill where Newman lived. Both men said they knew him fairly well before Wednesday and said he had “issues,” which they did not specify. Moore said village police were familiar with Newman from non-criminal matters, on which he didn’t elaborate.

“I would describe him as a nice young man who was struggling with some issues,” the police chief said.

“It’s a sad, sad ending to whatever he was going through,” Grant said. He was a real nice, personable person. … He was basically a harmless person who had issues.”

Grant said that with Newman’s long, dark hair, he looked like famous illusionist Criss Angel, and other tenants of the apartment building called him that as a nickname.

Both Grant and Moore talked on the phone with Newman’s mother in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans, after her son died Wednesday. Grant said he had spoken to her on several occasions before. As parent himself, he said having someone tell you your child has died must be “the worst phone call in your life.”

Moore said he was one of the officers who arrived at the scene Wednesday right after the fall and performed CPR on Newman, who was still alive but with agonized breathing.

“He later died at the hospital,” Moore said. “I would say they made every attempt to save him at the scene and the hospital, and unfortunately he didn’t make it.

“I don’t think it was thought through,” the chief said of Newman’s apparent jump. “Thank God he didn’t hit somebody else.”

While no one else was physically injured, however, Moore said he knows many other people were emotionally hurt by it. Several local people have told him “they are struggling with what they witnessed.”

Starting at $3.92/week.

Subscribe Today