Debt-Ridden Couple Commit Suicide

Glenn Scarpelli, Patricia Colant jumped from their Manhattan office building
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 29, 2017 10:14 AM CDT
NY Couple Jump to Their Deaths To Escape Debts
Police officers work a crime scene in Manhattan in this file photo.   (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

A debt-ridden chiropractor and his wife jumped to their deaths from a Manhattan building after penning a suicide note titled, “We had a wonderful life.” The New York Post reports Glenn Scarpelli, 53, and Patricia Colant, 50, leaped from a ninth-floor window of their office building around 5:45am Friday, landing in the middle of East 33rd Street. “Patricia and I had everything in life,” Scarpelli writes, describing a “financial spiral” that left the couple unable to “live with” their “financial reality.” Sources say there were notes tucked in each of their pockets in a plastic bag, along with ID, leaving instructions on how to notify their children, Isabella, 20, and Joseph, 19. “I just don’t understand why … they would do this to their kids,” friend Adam Lamb tells the Post.

Described as doting parents, Scarpelli ran the Madison Wellness Center and his wife worked as the receptionist. The business had recently closed, the Daily Mail reports, and the couple was reportedly in deep debt, facing multiple tax liens. Scarpelli was sued in federal court for failing to pay back a student loan and owed about $123,000 to the feds and $42,000 to the state in unpaid taxes since 2003, per the Mail. The couple’s children attended an elite high school, and both enrolled in private colleges. Last year Joseph praised his parents in a school speech, saying they “repeatedly told me that I could wake up one day and lose everyone I love, but no one will ever be able to take away my faith.” A crowd-funding page was set up to aid the children's education. (More double suicide stories.)

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