Man throws 3-year-old son, then himself to their deaths from roof of Midtown high-rise

Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, who was in the midst of a child custody battle with his estranged wife, allegedly threw his toddler, and then himself to their deaths plummeting 52 floors from the roof of a West Side skyscraper.

A distraught dad threw his 3-year-old son and himself off the roof of a 52-story West Side skyscraper Sunday in a holiday death plunge that apparently stemmed from a custody battle, police said.The 35-year-old man, Dmitriy Kanarikov, died after jumping from the Lincoln Square tower at 12:05 p.m. The red-haired tot, Kirill, dressed in Christmas pajamas, died moments later at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, cops said.

His estranged wife, Svetlana Bukharina, boasted on her Facebook page in March, "I have the best husband and son in the world." But apparently their home life imploded in recent months. Kanarikov and Bukharina split and the cherished time he had with Kirill was curbed by a custody fight.

Their breakup was so fraught with anger that they had to meet in a public place - the NYPD's 17th Precinct stationhouse - to drop off and pick up their son, a source said.

Kanarikov picked up Kirill at 10 a.m. Sunday at the designated precinct and was to return him there at 1 p.m., the source said.



"This is a private matter for my family and my friends," Bukharina told the Daily News when reached on her cellphone at the 20th Precinct stationhouse.

Cops said the bodies landed on the roofs of two different buildings neighboring the South Park Tower at 124 W. 60th St., where Kanarikov tossed his son and jumped to his death.

The father's body was found on the roof of a low-rise building at 425W. 59th St. while the son's landed atop a four-story building at 445W. 59th St., police said.

t remained unclear Sunday night why Kanarikov, who lived in Brooklyn, went to the luxury high-rise, where apartments rent for $3,300 to $6,350, to end his and his son's lives.

His only connection to the building is that he had a friend who once lived there, a police source said.

"He goes into the building with the child. Then, we believe to the roof, based on a witness," the source told The News. "It would appear that he dropped the child and jumped afterward.

One witness told cops of seeing father and son fall past the window of a 29th-floor apartment and others described hearing the sickening thuds of the bodies hitting the rooftops below. "I heard a boom!" said Adam Gutierrez, who works in the emergency room at the nearby hospital. "The way it sounded, they must've jumped from high up."

Luis Ortiz, a maintenance worker, said he was in the emergency room at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital when little Kirill was wheeled in.

"The little boy had Christmas pajamas on," Ortiz told The News. "They were working on him, but nothing. You could tell that he was already slipping away."

He said the tragedy, just three days before Christmas, was heartbreaking.

"Being a parent to two kids myself, my heart goes out to his family," Ortiz said. "You gotta take care of your children when they're here."

While it was unclear what triggered the deadly incident, records show Kanarikov and Bukharina had a recent spat over custody of Kirill.

A source revealed that one of the parents complained that the other failed to return their son to her within his allotted time period.

Kanarikov's Facebook page is full of photos of his once-happy family. Pictures showed the parents doting over their boy on family outings at the beach.

One poignant photo shows three footprints in the sand - those of two adults flanking the footprint of a child. But tenants at the South Park Tower could not fathom a single justifiable reason for any father to take his child's life.

"You see people and they have a face like yours and mine, it doesn't tell you a story," said Ellie Adiel. "It's shattering to think someone could go that far; that it has to be that bad."