Stephanie Adams, a former Playboy Playmate, committed suicide Friday by jumping from the top floor of the Gotham Hotel in New York City. The 47-year-old’s body was found on a second-floor landing in the hotel’s rear courtyard alongside the body of her seven-year-old son.
NYPD Chief of Manhattan Detectives, William Aubrey, had this to say during a press conference, according to The New York Post:
“Early this morning investigators located an individual whose attention was drawn to that same second-floor area when he heard two loud noises. His attention was drawn to that and he discovered these two deceased individuals.”
Adams was reportedly upset that she couldn’t take her son to Europe for the summer after her estranged husband, Wall Street chiropractor Charles Nicolai, disputed the trip in court and won.
“All I want to do is take my son and get away from this nightmare for a few days,” the 1992 Playmate told The Post just days before her suicide. “But they won’t let me.”
A friend of Adams’, who spoke to The Post anonymously, was shocked by the news.
“This is really stunning. She loved that child,” he said. “This boy was her whole life, this is terrible. The child — I can’t imagine she would do that. She was so close to that child, she wouldn’t even let the child go to school. People have these lives you don’t even know about. I didn’t see suicide.”
The pal went on to say she suffered from undisclosed emotional issues, but didn’t believe she would take things this far.
“She was happy — she wasn’t depressed. But she was unrealistic in her goals,” he explained. “If you put her diagnosis at a 1 to 10, 10 being the worst, she was not a 10.”
