An ex-Playboy playmate leapt to her death from the top of a 25-story skyscraper, holding her seven year-old son amid a vicious custody battle with her ex.
Stephanie Adams, 47, and her son Vincent died after plunging from the top of the Gotham Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Friday morning, into a second-floor courtyard at the rear of the building.
Adams was embroiled in a ‘fierce court battle’ with her former husband Charles Nicolai, also 47.
The chiropractor’s lawyer is said to have recently demanded that Adams hand over Vincent’s passport, scuppering plans for a summer vacation in Europe.
And the Post reported that the estranged couple’s relationship was so toxic they would meet at a NYPD precinct in Tribeca for handovers, to ensure that violence did not ensue.
Adams became Playboy’s first out gay centerfold in 2003, but later had relationships with men.
Adams and Vincent checked into the $870-a-night penthouse on Thursday evening, NYPD Chief of Manhattan Detectives William Aubrey told a press conference Friday.
He added: ‘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.’
It is not known whether Adams left a suicide note.
The model, who was Playboy’s Miss November in 1992, came out as Playboy’s first gay centerfold in 2003.
She later married a male investment banker, before becoming engaged to Nicolai in 2009.
After leaving modeling behind, she turned her hand to writing self-help books, and penned 25 of the non-fiction titles.
She railed against claims she was shallow in 2013, telling the Post: ‘The stereotypes are sexist and unfair. ‘Just because I look a certain way and have expensive tastes, it doesn’t mean I’m shallow.
‘Style and looks don’t mean lack of brains, sweetheart!’
Metro