A 73-year-old man fell to his death after trying to escape home invaders by going through the window of his sixth-floor Manhattan apartment, police say.
Early Saturday morning, a man broke into a Washington Heights apartment through a window after scaling a fire escape before letting two accomplices in through the front door, the New York Police Department said in a statement.
Two men were in the 161st Street apartment at the time: 73-year-old Jacinto Remigio and his 40-year-old son.
The invaders tied up the 40-year-old, who was not injured, and stole an $8,000 gold chain and $200 in cash, according to police. During this, Remigio tried to escape through a window.
Heriberto Garcia, who said he was friends with Remigio for decades, told NBC News he witnessed the attempted escape.
Garcia said the man fell after he climbed out of the window, got out onto a small ledge to reach another window and was stopped by an air-conditioning unit. He fell 30 minutes after the three men broke into the apartment, CBS News reports.
The 73-year-old was pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital Center.
Richard Ramsundarsingh, who lives two floors below Remigio’s apartment, told CBS News the home invasion woke him up.
"There was a loud bang early in the morning," Ramsundarsingh said. "I heard the sound. You think it’s the neighborhood."
"Two flights down. What if they had stopped on this floor? Or the floor before or somebody else? God knows what could’ve happened. It’s kind of scary now," he added. "When you think about it, it’s only two floors up, and you have no idea that someone just lost their life two floors up. It goes to show one minute you’re here and the next minute you’re gone."
The three burglary suspects, all men, are being sought by the NYPD after they fled.
The NYPD told The Independent there are no further updates as of late Monday morning.
