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Woman Falls to her Death After Slipping on Step and Crashing Through Window

By Nicholas Rizzi | May 22, 2015 10:36am
 The woman slipped and fell out a window between the 5th and 6th stories of 221 Sherman Ave. on Thursday night, police said.
Woman Dies After Slipping and Falling Out Window, Police Say
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INWOOD — A 67-year-old woman slipped in a stairway and plunged to her death after crashing though a fifth-floor window of an apartment building on Thursday night, police said.

The woman was walking from the sixth floor to the fifth on the rear staircase of 221 Sherman Ave. at roughly 8:30 p.m., when she tripped and fell out of the window, police said.

Residents of the building said that the woman was from the Dominican Republic and was visiting her son Amauris Cerda, who lived on the fifth floor of the building.

After spending the day with her daughter in New Jersey, the woman returned to the building before Cerda was home from work and realized she had forgotten keys to the apartment.

Cerda called his friend Katherine Mercado, 25, who lived on the building's sixth floor to ask if his mother could wait in her apartment, Mercado said.

Mercado said that the woman's first name was Francisca, but she was not sure if she shared the same last name as her son.

"She came up here and she was talking to my mom for a good minute," Mercado said.

Eventually, Cerdo's neighbor who had a set of keys arrived to let the woman into Cerdo's apartment.

About a half hour later, Mercado said she got a frantic call from Cerdo who was still at work.

"He was saying, 'Cathy what happened to my mom? I heard something happened to my mom," she said.

Mercado sent her uncle to check and he saw the broken window and several police on the scene, she said.

Residents said that a first floor neighbor heard a crash and called 911 around 8:30 p.m.

Several of the windows in the stairwell were missing window guards.

Landlords are required to install window guards in apartments, but it was not clear if they are also required in common areas.

The Department of Building's referred the inquiry about window guards to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development because it is a housing code issue.

HPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Police said the woman's death was accidental and foul play was not suspected.

Mercado, who had met Cerdo's mother on several of her previous visits to New York City, described her as an upbeat person.

"She was a very happy person, very mellow, very sweet," Mercado said. "I didn't have too long of knowing her, but we just had an affection for her."