A retired New York City Supreme Court judge’s son is accused of killing his mother with a piece of furniture and then jumping naked to his death from their posh Upper East Side apartment.
The New York Post said that according to NYPD authorities, Douglas Solomon, 26, the son of retired judge Charles Solomon, 75, attacked his mother Diane Gallagher, 65, on Tuesday morning inside their apartment at 180 E. 79th Street.
After Douglas died, witnesses informed police that they heard him cry as he descended from the 16th level of their 20-story apartment building.
Police, who found the young man’s naked body in the building’s courtyard, believe Solomon jumped to his death and are investigating the case as a murder-suicide.
Around 10:30 a.m., according to NYPD officials, they received a report regarding the incident. They arrived to discover Gallagher dead with multiple head traumas in the family’s 16th floor apartment.
Before hearing Douglas fall to his death, neighbors claimed to the Post that they had heard argumentative voices coming from the family’s flat.
‘I heard a bunch of voices. I thought it was construction workers arguing,’ one resident told The Post. ‘I thought it was just people angry with each other.’
Other neighbors mourned the loss of Gallagher, who they described as an ‘amazing person.’
‘A great mother, a great wife, a great everything and really a great friend,’ a neighbor who went by Martine told the Post.
Police said the investigation is ongoing and that there was no history of domestic violence or mental health issues in the family.
Charles, who retired in 2017 after a battle with illness and most recently served for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, could not be reached for comment right away.
The judge presided over the P-Diddy trial for the 2001 nightclub shooting while he was a three-decade member of the city’s Supreme Court.
He presided over the court hearing the historic Lorna Santiago murder trial in 2010, finding Michael Lenahan guilty of killing Santiago by strangulation and keeping her body in bed for two days.
Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York, reportedly hired a Russian prostitute, who Charles granted a plea deal for in 2017. Spitzer accused the disgraced governor of extorting him.