Couple jump to their deaths because they ‘can’t afford’ health care

A couple jumped to their death in Murray Hill early Friday. Seth Gottfried

A pair of Manhattan parents claiming financial woes jumped to their deaths early Friday – leaving double suicide notes pleading that their two kids be cared for, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

The suicide note recovered by police.Seth Gottfried

The bodies of the man, 53-year-old chiropractor Glenn Scarpelli, and his wife, 50-year-old Patricia Scarpelli, were found in the middle of the street on 33rd Street between Park and Madison avenues in Murray Hill after the pair jumped from the ninth-floor window of a 17-story corner office building on Madison Avenue at about 5:45 a.m., police said.
Glenn, whose office was on the same floor of the building where the couple jumped, titled the suicide note found in his pocket, “WE HAD A WONDERFUL LIFE.” It was typed on a piece of white paper.
His wife also had a suicide note in her pocket that read, “in sum and substance,” according to a source, “‘Our kids are upstairs, please take care of them.’”
“Patricia and I had everything in life,” the man’s note read. But it also touched on the couple’s “financial spiral” and how “we can not live with” the “financial reality,” sources said.
A law-enforcement source at the scene told The Post that authorities at first believed that the couple struggled with health-care costs. But an NYPD spokesman said later that there was no mention of medical-cost struggles in the notes.
The couple was in debt, another source said.
The victims’ identities were not immediately released.

Seth Gottfried

Area workers who witnessed the aftermath of the tragic incident were stunned.
“When I got here at 6:05 a.m., I walked by dead bodies on the ground,” said a woman who would only identify herself as Kazi who works at the nearby 7-Eleven store.
“I was scared. I’ve never seen dead bodies before,” she said.
Another man who works at the building next door said when he heard police sirens he looked out the window and saw the two bodies.
“Insane,” the man, who identified himself as Harry, said.
The couple’s tragic deaths come at a time of national debate on healthcare reform.
Source: NYPOST