A father named Dmitriy Kanarikov flung his 3-year-old son off the rooftop of their high-rise, 52-storey Manhattan apartment building before jumping off right after in a murder-suicide, police confirmed Monday.
It was the first time Dmitriy Kanarikov was allowed to spend time alone with his son in the middle of a messy custody battle with the child's mother, said NYPD.
"There was a history of domestic turmoil," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly in an interview.
The commissioner explained that Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, had picked up his 3-year-old boy around 10 o'clock in the morning at a police precinct in Manhattan last Sunday. The police precinct had been the neutral site agreed upon by both parents and it would have been the first time Kanarikov would be spending time with his only child "outside of some sort of institutional setting," confirmed Kelly.
Kanarikov picked up the three-year-old and shortly after went to the Manhattan apartment building's roof with him. All signs indicate that Kanarikov threw the child off the building's roof and jumped off himself, the police commissioner shared.
One of Kanarikov's friends used to live in the apartment building which was situated near Columbus Circle and the Lincoln Center.
Police investigators retrieved a security video depicting Dmitriy Kanarikov and his son passing through the entrance without being stopped by the doorman and also found the father's Lexus parked right outside.
Police officers who responded to an emergency call made regarding two jumpers seen from the Upper West Side building around noon time found the bodies of the father and his child on two separate buildings' lower rooftops.
Dmitriy Kanarikov was pronounced dead by the time the police arrived at the scene while three-year-old Kiriil Kanarikov died in the hospital where he was rushed to for emergency treatment. One of the witnesses to the crime mentioned that Kiriil had on Christmas pajamas.
The motive behind the tragic crime remained unresolved come Monday, the police commissioner remarked. There was no letter or note found in the scene and the police found no proof of Dmitriy Kanarikov threatening to harm his three-year-old boy. However, at some point during their messy custody battle, Kanarikov told his wife that "unless she signed over the house to him and some undisclosed property, he was going to take the child," Commissioner Kelly confirmed.
Dmitriy Kanarikov married his ex-wife in 2009 and the couple lived in Brooklyn where Kiriil was born in 2010. The two separated in 2012 and his wife and child moved to New Jersey. Kanarikov's wife got an order of protection after the move.
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