A father threw his 3-year-old son off the roof of a 52-story Manhattan building Sunday then jumped himself, killing them both, the New York Daily News reported.
The father was involved in a custody battle with the child's mother, police said. Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, was pronounced dead at the scene after he jumped from Lincoln Square tower on the Upper West Side at 12:05 p.m., the New York Daily News reported.
Witnesses said they heard the sounds of the falling bodies.
"I heard a boom!" Adam Gutierrez, an emergency room employee at a hospital nearby, told the Daily News. "The way it sounded, they must've jumped from high up."
Kanarikov's body was found on the roof of a nearby building, police said. The toddler, who was found on the roof of a different building, miraculously survived the fall, but later died after he was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital.
"You could tell he was slipping away," Luis Ortiz, who saw paramedics working on the boy at the hospital, told the New York Post. "They said the father was up there, but they didn't bring anyone else in. It was just heartbreaking. I have two kids of my own. They tried to do the best they could."
Dmitriy, an immigrant from the Ukraine who lived Brooklyn, recently separated with his wife, Svetlana Bukharina, media reports say. The relationship had grown so bitter, that the two had to meet in a public places to pick up and drop off their son, the Daily News reported. Police said Kanarikov picked up his son, Kirill, at 10 a.m. Sunday from the NYPD's 17th Precinct, and was supposed to bring Kirill back at 1 p.m.
The family appeared to be drama-free just free months ago, according to the Daily News.
"I want to be the best dad and husband," Kanarikov wrote on his Facebook page. "Nothing is more important to me right now."
Bukharina wrote on her Facebook page in March "I have the best husband and son in the world," the Daily News reported.
Reports do not indicate what caused the breakup.
"This is a private matter for my family and my friends," Bukharina told the Daily News.