Former Playboy centerfold Stephanie Adams, 46, did the unthinkable when she pushed her seven-year-old son Vincent out of a 25th floor NYC hotel window then followed by jumping after him to their deaths. She was involved in a bitter custody dispute with her estranged husband, but a murder-suicide involving her own child seems so extreme. “People who are mentally well do not kill their child and kill themselves, no matter how brutal a divorce may be. Homicide and suicide are a sign of mental illness,” Dr. Jenn Mann, author of The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection & Intimacy, tells HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY.
“Murder suicides are not terribly common. According to the violence policy center approximately 1200 people die in murder suicides in America in a year. 93 percent of the killers use a gun, 89 percent are male and 94 percent of the time they use a gun. Given those known statistics, this murder-suicide is out of the ordinary,” Dr. Mann continues.
“The fact that she has to do the custody exchange at the NYPD, as opposed to a neutral public location, tells us that this was an extremely volatile relationship,” Dr. Mann adds, telling us that “She clearly felt that she did not have the capacity to cope with this divorce and did not have the emotional stamina to get through pain, loss and disappointment. According to all accounts, she loved her son tremendously. Sometimes people commit an act like this out of anger and revenge. Other times, it is an act of desperation done by a person that sees no end to their pain and suffering. But, again, that is a sign of mental illness.”
Stephanie was locked in was in a bitter custody battle with her estranged husband, Manhattan chiropractor Charles Nicolai, 47. Things got even more heated when he filed a motion on May 15 asking for sole custody of his son, and a judge also ruled that Stephanie could not take Vincent away to Spain for the summer, where her boyfriend lived. The 1992 Playboy playmate reportedly called up the New York Post’s Richard Johnson to rail against the ruling. “All I want to do is take my son and get away from this nightmare for a few days,” she said in a two-minute phone call, “but they won’t let me.” Three days later Stephanie did the unthinkable and committed her murder-suicide with the boy off the 25th floor of the Gotham Hotel.