Troubled NYU student leaps to his death from 10th floor of New York University's Bobst library
A New York University student haunted by "depressing thoughts" leaped to his death Tuesday from the 10th floor of the school's main library.
Andrew Williamson-Noble left a suicide note in his dorm, sources said, but apparently gave no inkling to his family or friends he was about to kill himself.
"I have no idea how this happened and why," his shocked mother, Esmeralda Williamson-Noble of Irvington, Westchester County, told the Daily News. "I wish he was here with us and we could hug him."
A close friend said he was sleeping when Williamson-Noble texted him about two hours before jumping, asking to meet at a Second Ave. shop that sells gourmet French fries. "It's very surprising," said the 19-year-old NYU sophomore, who asked not to be identified. "He was a happy guy."
Although his Facebook page was filled with photos of friends, Williamson-Noble, 20, wrote in July 2008 that he was lonely.
"I wish I had more friends who were on the same sleep cycle as me," he wrote. "There's a considerable loneliness that comes from being awake when few others are. One feels both that one owns the world, and that despite this triumph, has no one to share it with."
The next month, the doomed student described how he decided to walk all the way home to Irvington figuring "such an odyssey would give me a sense of purpose, and dispel some of the depressing thoughts which had been haunting me."He wrote that, along the way, he was held up by a knife-wielding mugger and rescued by a gun-toting good Samaritan.
The NYU student's life was marked by heartbreak early on when, at age 6, his infant brother, Alexander, died of sudden infant death syndrome.
Word of Williamson-Noble's tragic death spread quickly through the campus and into cyberspace, where pals posted farewells on his page.
Friends said Williamson-Noble, who was majoring in East Asian studies, was "elegant" and "witty" and a fluent Chinese speaker.
But at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, he was a desperate man bent on self-destruction.
Cops said Williamson-Noble used an NYU-issued card to swipe himself into the Bobst Library.
Witnesses reported hearing a "loud thud" when the junior's body hit the marble floor in the atrium of the library."There was no blood," said a 19-year-old student named Tyler, who was studying in the basement at the time.NYU, which has endured its share of suicides in recent years, installed see-through barriers on the floors facing the atrium in 2003 after two students killed themselves.
Somehow, Williamson-Noble got over the wall. "It's not an easy thing to do," said sophomore Irvin Camarillo, 19. "You'd have to be tall to flop over it, unless you had a chair or something."Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/11/03/2009-11-03_nyu_student_found_dead_at_university_library.html#ixzz0WA2aSkSZ
Facebook?
RIP. Poor Kid.
