TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (Sept. 26) -- Police said Sunday they believe they've recovered the body of a woman whose suicidal jump from a suburban New York City bridge echoed her stepfather's plunge from it 15 years ago after a grisly family murder.
State Police Sgt. Todd Parent said the body found Sunday afternoon in the Hudson River is believed to be that of Anne Morell Petrillo.
Witnesses saw Petrillo stop her car on the Tappan Zee Bridge and jump Thursday. She left a note. A source told the Daily News in New York that the note said, "I love everyone, but this is what I want."
Petrillo was the daughter of slain newspaper heiress Anne Scripps Douglas. Her stepfather, Scott Douglas, leaped to his death from the bridge in 1994 after killing her mother with a claw hammer. The family founded The Detroit News.
"The murder set the tone for her entire life," the source told the Daily News. "She had threatened suicide in the past, but no one thought she would actually go through with it."
Police say the Rockland County medical examiner's office will make the official identification.
