Austrian UN Employee Dies in Fall from 19th Floor

February 18th, 2008

Via: New York Daily News:

A 44-year-old Austrian woman who worked for the United Nations plunged from the 19th floor of the iconic Secretariat building Sunday in an apparent suicide leap, police said.

Maria DiBiase, who worked with the Austrian Consulate, was discovered in the complex’s rear courtyard by horrified UN staffers about 8 a.m., police said.

DiBiase, who lived in a dormitory on W. 34th St., apparently jumped after showing up for work at the UN early Sunday, police sources said.

Security guards and investigators placed yellow tape around her heavyset body and blocked some staff from leaving the building. Later, DiBiase’s body lay draped with a white sheet on the east side of the 39-story building overlooking the East River.

There were no apparent signs of foul play, but an investigation was ongoing, NYPD Detective Martin Speechley said.

DiBiase was remembered as a chatty and friendly woman who had an interest in computers, according to police and UN security officers at the scene.

It wasn’t the first death jump from the 55-year-old landmark.

In 1982, Johannes Raven, 57, a UN official who had just resigned from the Office of Financial Services and was reported to have been upset about his failing health, jumped from the 18th floor on the west side of the building.

It was unclear what job DiBiase held at the UN.

In a statement, UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said, “A UN agency staff member died after falling from the 19th floor of the UN Secretariat Building.

“At this time there is no suspicion of foul play.”

Update: UN Names Woman Who Fell From Building

By JOHN HEILPRIN

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The woman who died after falling from the U.N.’s Secretariat Building was a 44-year-old employee of the World Health Organization’s International Computing Center, a U.N. spokeswoman said Monday.

U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe identified the woman who fell from the 19th floor Sunday as Maria Gabriela Di Biase.

Police and U.N. security officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the woman had jumped from a window after showing up to work early in the morning.

Okabe said there was no suspicion of foul play. The police said they are still investigating. The official cause of death was to be determined by the medical examiner.

Di Biase, who has dual Uruguayan and Austrian nationalities, worked on the floor for the cooperative that provides computing and communication services to U.N. agencies. Employees would not discuss her death, though several recalled her as a friendly, likable woman.

United Nations security guards found her body Sunday morning on the lawn, several dozen yards away from the building, overlooking the East River. New York Police Department detectives and a medical examiner were summoned to the scene.

One Response to “Austrian UN Employee Dies in Fall from 19th Floor”

  1. rockpicker says:

    United Nations security guards found her body Sunday morning on the lawn, several dozen yards away from the building, overlooking the East River. New York Police Department detectives and a medical examiner were summoned to the “scene.”

    ? Say, what?

    Several dozen yards away from the building?

    Not too clear on the lyrics, here.

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