Thief tries to break into fifth-floor upper East Side apartment through window, slips, falls, dies

A thief trying to make a quick escape fell to his death Monday morning after a resident bravely confronted him as he was breaking into her upper East Side apartment, cop sources said.

The would-be burglar was trying to slip into the fifth-floor apartment on E. 91st St. through a window screen when the woman called out - startling him, the sources said.

He fled from the fire escape onto the roof of the five-story building and then tried to make his way onto the roof of the neighboring building, the sources said.

But as he was crossing over he fell down an air shaft about 10:20 a.m., the sources said.

He died at the scene. Police officials did not immediately release his name. Witnesses who saw his body after the fall said he appeared to be young, possibly in his 20s.

"I heard this bang," said James Charles, 55, a maintenance worker in the building. He said he at first assumed an air conditioner had fallen from a window.

"I looked out the window and there was this guy," he said.

The air shaft is covered with chicken wire, and the burglar may have tried to walk across it instead of jumping over it, one police source said.

Cops were investigating the scene Monday afternoon as the burglar's lifeless body remained at the bottom of the air shaft.