Sad ending: Missing NJ teenager fell from luxury hotel across from Central Park in New York City
The body found mangled after falling from the roof of a luxury hotel across from Central Park in New York was identified as a 17-year-old teenager who had been reported missing in NJ.
Several days after a body was found mangled after falling from the roof of the luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel across from New York’s Central Park, it was identified as Noah Legaspi, a 17-year-old teenager who his family had reported missing in New Jersey.
NYPD believes the young man jumped shortly after 9 p.m. on Thursday the 17th after taking a service elevator to the roof, dressed in pajamas. He had been reported missing earlier that day, police sources and family members said yesterday.
The hotel, one of the most expensive in New York, is on the top 19 floors of the 55-story Deutsche Bank Center tower (until 2021 called Time Warner Center), which also houses residences.
Legaspi was not registered as a guest or resident and carried no identification. Investigators believe he entered through a loading area and rode a service elevator up to the 21st floor of the hotel tower Thursday, a law enforcement source said.
The jumper from a Manhattan Deutsche Bank Center rooftop is identified as a missing New Jersey teen.
Noah Legaspi plunged through the Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s marquee, splitting his body in two before hitting the sidewalk on Aug. 17. https://t.co/OY5em4vHsn
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) August 23, 2023
The family stopped hearing from the teen after his father dropped him off Thursday at his girlfriend’s home in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. They spent the next few days searching for him.
It wasn’t until Monday night that NYPD officers knocked on the family’s door in Avenel (NJ) and family members were able to identify the young man seen on camera entering the Deutsche Bank Center before his tragic death, the Daily News indicated.
“(He had) a lot of demons and insecurities, and that took over and won out, unfortunately,” his brother Luis Legaspi, 28, said yesterday. “It’s a mental health thing,” he reflected. “Even though he had all that pain inside him, he always managed to make someone smile.”
The family believes the teenager and his girlfriend broke up before he called a cab service and ended up in Manhattan. He was a senior at Colonia High School in Colonia (NJ) and wanted to become a fashion designer. He worked as an apprentice tailor during the summer, added his father Elias Legaspi.
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