A former Playboy Playmate jumped with her 7-year-old son to their deaths from a Midtown hotel Friday, May 18. Stephanie Adams, 47, leaped with young Vincent from the top floor of the Gotham Hotel around 8:30am, according to Dailymail.
The pair checked into the hotel around 6pm Thursday, May 17, and were staying in a 25th-floor penthouse suite, NYPD Chief of Manhattan Detectives William Aubrey said at a press conference. Their bodies were found on a second-floor landing in the hotel’s rear courtyard. It’s unclear if she was holding her son, or if he jumped at his own will.
“Early this morning investigators located an individual whose attention was drawn to that same second-floor area when he heard two loud noises,” Aubrey said. “His attention was drawn to that and he discovered these two deceased individuals.”
The deaths come as Adams waged a fierce court battle with her estranged husband, Charles Nicolai, 47, owner of Wall Street Chiropractic & Wellness.
Their relationship was so bad that they had begun meeting for custody exchanges at a police precinct in Tribeca, reports Dailymail.
‘It ensures no violence takes place,’ a friend told The Post in March.
Adams, who posed in the November 1992 issue of Playboy, was also awarded $1.2million from the NYPD, after suing the department over a 2006 incident in which she was thrown to the ground by a cop who falsely claimed she pulled a gun on him.
Adams and her ex were also sued in 2013 by Dilek Edwards, a former massage therapist in Nicolai’s office.
Edwards said she was let go after Nicolai claimed his then-wife was ‘jealous’ of ‘too cute’ Edwards. The lawsuit was initially thrown out, but later restored by an appeals court who said Edwards could sue for gender discrimination.
Adams was supposedly a self-made millionaire by the age of 30. In addition to her work as a model, she also spent time as an investor and founded a skincare line called GODDESSY Organics. On the skincare line’s website, she claims to be the author of two dozen metaphysical books, astronomy calendars, and tarot cards.
She describes herself as a “generational occultist, psychic and spiritualist.” She goes onto say that she has “decided to dedicate most of her time towards business, philanthropy, and developing as much of a private life as she can possibly have.”