Sunday, December 16, 2007

VISITOR IN MIDTOWN DEATH LEAP

Another psychotropic drug victim?

December 16, 2007 --
On her first trip to New York, a 21-year-old Minnesota woman jumped from a fire escape and plunged 60 feet to her death, cops and witnesses said.

Small-town girl Jennifer Olson and a male friend won a trip to the big city and flew from Minnesota with the hopes of rockin' out at radio station Z100's Jingle Ball concert Friday night. Instead, their trip ended in tragedy.

Olson and her friend, whose name was not released by police, had been tooling around the city and checked into the Night Hotel on West 45th Street before finding a nearby bar to have drinks.

J.J. Walsh, 39, from Rockland County, said he saw the two ticket winners drinking at The Perfect Pint about an hour before the woman's fatal fall.

"He was kind of annoyed with her," he recalled. "She was talking to other people at the bar instead of him. She was friendly and very nice."

Walsh said Olson told him that her friend worked with her in a dentist's office and had won tickets to New York for the sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. He invited her along, but the trip was allegedly straining their friendship.

"I guess he liked her, but she didn't have the same feelings," Walsh said. "She said she wanted to come to New York City again because this wasn't the way she wanted to do it."

The two said they were going to MSG where headliners such as Alicia Keys, Avril Lavigne and The Backstreet Boys would take the stage.

Instead Walsh claims he saw Olson's male companion pacing nervously in front of the hotel after the two had seemed to argue.

A few moments later Police and Fire Department vehicles screamed down the street.

Olson, who sources said suffered from depression and was on anti-anxiety drugs, jumped from the fire escape and landed on a concrete awning.

She was pronounced dead at Roosevelt Hospital just after 9:45 p.m.

Police questioned Olson's friend and released him and have found no criminality in her death.

perry.chiaramonte@nypost.com

Original Article - VISITOR IN MIDTOWN DEATH LEAP

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