Fourteen-year-old Maria Ortiz was found by distraught neighbors on Tuesday evening at the foot of her Parkview Towers, 5001 Park Ave., West New York apartment building, after apparently having fallen or jumped from a sixth floor window following a fight with her mother regarding Maria’s boyfriend.
The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office ruled the death a suicide after receiving the official autopsy report on Wednesday.
West New York Police and Emergency Medical Service technicians immediately responded to a 6 p.m. phone call from neighbors at the scene Tuesday night, and Ortiz was taken to Palisades Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at the scene due massive injuries from the fall.
Apparently, young Ortiz jumped or fell from the window following a 5:30 confrontation with her mother over her 17-year-old boyfriend, a student at Memorial High School.
Tragic events
County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said that at around 5:30 p.m., Ortiz’s mother, Clelia Resto, came home to find their apartment door locked and chained.
When she was finally able to enter, she found the 17-year-old in the apartment.
“Apparently she was in the apartment with her boyfriend when her mother came home from work and found the door locked,” said DeFazio. “After some words were exchanged, the mother followed him out of the apartment and downstairs. [At this point] the victim was alone in the apartment and she apparently jumped out of her bedroom window.”
The incident took place within a matter of minutes, and when Resto returned home, she found her daughter lying on the cement below and heavily bleeding.
She had jumped out of her bedroom window facing Broadway and 50th Street.
DeFazio said the girl had no previous history of suicidal or emotional distress that the prosecutor’s office has been informed of, and she was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.
Stunned and confused
Although neighbors and friends have recently told the press of the long-standing conflict between Ortiz and her mother over the boyfriend, other close friends were surprised to hear that the two were even arguing.
According to a family friend who did not want to give her name, Ortiz was a good girl and a wonderful daughter, who had an open communication with her mother.
“She was her only daughter, and [Resto] was an incredible mother; she would do anything for her daughter,” the family friend said. “[Maria] was a good girl, a good daughter, and they had a good communication. I don’t know how this could have happened.”
The family friend said that she and Resto, who immigrated from Ecuador, met while training to become medical assistants and had been close friends ever since.
“She was a very hard working woman and one of my best friends,” she said.
Sadly, she has not heard from Resto since the incident and is very concerned.
“I found out what happened yesterday [Wednesday] and I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I have tried to reach her, but I haven’t heard from her. I don’t know where she is.”
Neighbors and friends have made a makeshift memorial for Maria Ortiz, a student at West New York Middle School, at the foot of her Park Avenue building, and have been leaving flowers, bears, and candles since yesterday.