Cynthia Wachennheim & her husband Hal Bacharach
A distraught mother strapped her baby boy to her chest and plunged eight stories out of an apartment window to her death in an apparent suicide on Wednesday - but the child miraculously survived.
Cynthia Wachenheim, 45, was found on the Harlem street with her son, Keston, in her arms. A police officer who responded took the boy, believed to be 10 months old, to hospital where he is said to be in stable condition.
Wachenheim - who was also known as Cindy - was clutching her son to her chest when her back hit the pavement. On impact, the baby bounced out of her motionless arms and started wailing.
A window to the upper Manhattan apartment was wide open, and there were no signs of struggle inside, police said. There were no safety bars on the apartment's windows.
Neighbor Steven Dominguez, 18, was walking to a grocery store with his mother, Adelina Dominguez, when he saw the woman fall.
‘I heard a small scream when she was in the air, and then I heard a nasty bang,’ he told DNAInfo.com. ‘It sounded like a big piece of wood hitting the ground.
When he approached Wachenheim on the ground, he saw the baby crying on the sidewalk.
‘I was shocked,’ he said. ‘I couldn't believe it.’
He said his mother went to pick up the baby but an emergency response person told her to stand back.
A pair of cops happened to be sitting in a squad car near the scene and also witnessed the fall.
A neighbor told The New York Post Wachenheim was heard arguing with her husband, 48-year-old Hal Bacharach, at the upscale The Sutton co-op at 147th Street and Bradhurst Avenue at around 1pm.
The man was seen on surveillance video leaving the apartment building after the argument.
About two hours later, at 3.25pm, witnesses saw Wachenheim leaping from her eighth-story apartment window with her son in her arms.
She was pronounced dead at the scene. Neighbors say baby Keston is the couple’s only child together and Wachenheim was thought to have been suffering from severe postpartum depression.
The 44-year-old is said to have left a rambling, incoherent 13-page suicide note in which she referred to her failings as a mother.
Sources told the New York Daily News: 'The note said she was not happy and she talked about what she planned to do.'
In the note, Wachenheim is 'saying to her husband, "I love you. I'm making you suffer. You’re going to think I’m evil",' a source said.
'She thinks she’s a failing mother. On the last page, she refers to postpartum depression. She was supposed to see a therapist, but she blew him off.
'As the note goes on, you get the idea she’s explaining why she’s going to do it,' the source added.
The note also referred to a handicap that Keston was suffering from and said she was worried about how he was developing.
It is unclear if the baby had any mental or physical problems but a law enforcement official told the Daily News that though Wachenheim was convinced her son had cerebral palsy, doctors said there was nothing wrong with him.
Police say the child is being treated at Harlem Hospital Center and is expected to survive.
Neighbor Christina Johnson told the New York Times the victim and her family had lived in the building for about three years, and she had never heard the parents fight until today.
Johnson said she heard Bacharach yelling at his wife, asking her over and over again why she wouldn't pick up the phone.
Police said they had never been called to the $300,000 apartment before.
Wachenheim, a high school valedictorian in Albany and a Columbia Law graduate, was on maternity leave from her $118,000-a-year job in the city court system.
She worked there for more than 15 years doing research and writing for judges. She was also said to be an associate court attorney.
Resident Yaa Dwamena, 32, said she’s lived in the building for several years and as long as she’s been there she’s seen Wachenheim.
'She was very nice, very friendly, very warm,' Dwamena said.
She said that the last time she saw Wachenheim was last week.
'I wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong with her,' she said. 'They were a happy-looking family. I wouldn’t think anything like this would happen.'
Wachenheim' father was a state police spokesman before his death in 2011. She worked in state Supreme Court in Manhattan doing legal research for judges, court officials said.
'We are all deeply saddened about this tragic incident,' state courts spokesman David Bookstaver said. 'Our thoughts are with Ms. Wachenheim’s family.'
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