The son of a retired New York City Supreme Court judge allegedly beat his mother to death with a piece of furniture before jumping to his death, naked, from their upscale Upper East Side apartment.
NYPD officials said Douglas Solomon, 26, who is the son of retired judge Charles Solomon, 75, attacked his mother Diane Gallagher, 65, on Tuesday morning inside their apartment on 180 E. 79th Street, the New York Post reported.
Witnesses told police they then heard Douglas screaming on his way down from the 16th floor of their 20-story apartment building before dying.
Police, who found the young man’s naked body in the building’s courtyard, believe Solomon jumped to his death and are investigating the case as a murder-suicide.
NYPD believe Douglas Solomon, 26, (left) beat his mother Diane Gallagher, 65, (right) to death before jumping naked to his death on Tuesday morning
Solomon and Gallagher (left) are pictured with Charles Solomon (left), a retired NYC Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon, who oversaw many high profile cases over the 30 year career
Solomon’s body was found in the courtyard of the apartment complex (highlighted)
NYPD officials said they first got a call about the incident at around 10:30 a.m., finding Gallagher dead in the family’s 16th floor apartment with several trauma injuries to the head.
Neighbors told the Post they had heard people arguing in the family’s apartment before hearing Douglas fall to his death.
‘I heard a bunch of voices. I thought it was construction workers arguing,’ one resident told The Post. ‘I thought it was just people angry with each other.’
Other neighbors mourned the loss of Gallagher, who they described as an ‘amazing person.’
‘A great mother, a great wife, a great everything and really a great friend,’ a neighbor who went by Martine told the Post.
Police said the investigation is ongoing and that there was no history of domestic violence or mental health issues in the family.
Gallagher (right) was found with multiple trauma injuries to the head inside the family’s apartment on 180 E. 79th Street, in the Upper East Side
Neighbors mourned the loss of Gallagher (above), who they described as an ‘amazing person’
Charles, who most recently worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office after retiring in 2017 following a battle with cancer, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The judge, who served on the city’s Supreme Court for three decades, oversaw the nightclub shooting trial for Sean Combs, better known as P-Diddy, in 2001.
He was also the judge who heard the infamous Lorna Santiago 2010 murder case, passing a guilty verdict on Michael Lenahan, who strangled Santiago to death and lay in bed with her corpse for two days.
Charles’ last high profile trial came in 2017, when he approved a plea deal for one of the Russian prostitutes allegedly hired by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, whom the disgraced governor accused of extorting him.
