An off-Broadway actress, from California, has been identified as the woman who jumped to her death with her rescue dog in New York City on Friday.
Linda Holston, 60, and her dog Jake, a 16-and-a-half-year-old rat terrier, died after she jumped from the roof of her 46-story luxury building, The Victory at 561 10th Ave., in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan – the site of another fatal jumping incident in February 2020.
Holston had just finished eating her last meal when she jumped to her death with her ‘lap dog’ just before 1 pm on Friday, the New York Post reported.
Linda Holston, 60, has been identified as the woman who jumped to her death with her dog
Holston was an actress who performed in community theater and off-broadway plays
She lived in a 46-story building called The Victory at 561 10th Ave. near 41st Street in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan
The person was found on an above-ground landing and carried out a service entrance door to the building
Cops told the Post they found a handwritten note from the woman talking about stress and bottles of medication in her apartment.
Holston moved to Manhattan from New Mexico in 2017 but was originally from Thousand Oaks, California, according to her Facebook page.
She began working as a sales representative at Main Street Hub when she moved to New York City in 2017 and then worked as a part-time tele-fundraiser Manhattan Theater Club until March 2020.
Her LinkedIn page has the haunting tagline, ‘What a wonderful world.’
In 1981 she graduated from the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in California and performed in community in New Mexico until she moved to New York where she studied acting at the William Esper Studio in New York until 2019, according to Backstage.
Her online profile describes her as being 5 feet tall with brown hair and blue eyes. She is seen smiling with her black and brown dog Jake who is sporting a gold bow.
A receptionist at Pure Paws Veterinary Care on East 42nd Street told the New York Post that Holston brought her dog to the practice for regular care.
The woman, 60, had just finished eating her last meal on top of her 46-story apartment building when she jumped to her death
The building, managed by Fetner Properties, has 420 rental apartments
Cops said they found a handwritten note from the woman talking about stress and bottles of medication in her apartment
The FDNY were at the scene to wash down the entire street due to all the blood over a large area
Firefighters had to use real hoses because of the amount of blood
Just before the woman jumped, a paper airplane note landed near a local resident who was sitting on the roof of a building across the street, he told the outlet.
Dimitri Wallace told the New York Post that he saw the words ‘You are blessed!’ scrawled on one of the paper airplane’s wings. On the other, someone had written: ‘Stay strong. You’ll get through this!’
Wallace said he wondered if someone was okay after finding the paper airplane, and in turn threw the paper airplane off the roof to pass along ‘a positive message.’
‘Yo, that’s crazy that somebody like threw this note and then this literally happened like right after,’ he said. ‘I just saw it, and I was like ‘Oh, that’s weird.’
It was not immediately clear if the paper airplane had been written by the woman or by someone else who had thrown it from another building in an attempt to reach her before she jumped.
Witnesses told the New York Post that they were shocked the woman had jumped with her pooch.
Construction worker Mike Olive, 37, said: ‘Bro, she threw herself out with a dog! With a dog!’
‘It’s unfortunate that somebody finds themselves in that situation. It’s unfortunate. Hopefully, God has her in his hands,’ he said.
Hesham Almakaleh, 20, was working as a security guard at a charter school across the street and said he was glad school wasn’t in session so kids didn’t have to see the woman jump.
‘How could you just grab your dog?’ Almakaleh added.
Holston moved to New York City in 2017 from New Mexico
One witness told the New York Daily News that he thought the someone had thrown garbage into the street.
He said: ‘I got closer and I realized that was not garbage, and I got the hell out of there.’
Last February, the NYPD responded to another suicide at the same building. The victim in that incident did not land on the street or sidewalk next to the building.
The person was found on an above-ground landing and carried out a service entrance door to the building. Cops had to use ropes and a ladder to access the body in a confined space and hoist it up to a level where they could then remove it.
The building, managed by Fetner Properties, has 420 rental apartments.
Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the number of suicides in the United States decreased 5.6% in 2020 – from 47,511 in 2019 to 44,834 in 2020.
Critics of lockdown measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic have suggested those measures would drive the suicide rate higher.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the nation. There were 130 suicides per day on average in 2019 – most of which, 50.39%, were caused by firearms. The advocacy group maintains a list of risk factors and warning signs.
CDC data lists New York as having among the lowest suicide rates in the nation.
Anyone considering suicide should contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or can chat with someone live on its website.