The mother of a 3-year-old thrown to his death from a 52-story Manhattan apartment building said the father killed the boy — and then himself — out of spite.
Svetlana Kanarikov said in a statement that she had been nervous about her ex's visits with her son, Kirill, and she initially wanted them to be supervised. But she relented after a Dec. 5 court appearance.
"The father never did anything violent against the child before," Kanarikov said of the two previous visits in the statement issued Monday night through a lawyer. "Both times, Kirill was happy after seeing his dad. Skype calls were also going well."
Police said Dmitriy Kanarikov threw the child from the rooftop of the building before jumping to his own death Sunday.
He had picked up Kirill at 10 a.m. Sunday at a Manhattan police precinct — a neutral site negotiated in advance by the parents — to spend time with him for the first time unsupervised.
The couple had been married four years and separated in August, and Svetlana Kanarikov said she had taken action after a domestic violence incident. Their split was acrimonious. In addition to Kirill, Dmitriy Kanarikov had wanted their house and other property, too, Svetlana Kanarikov said.
"He said he would take the child away and I will 'shoot myself from grief,'" she said. "This was his sick way to take Kirill away from me."
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She said he had told his parents that he was taking the child to Grand Central Terminal but instead went to the building on the Upper West Side and killed himself and the child.
Officers responding to an emergency call reporting two jumpers from the building near Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center found Kanarikov, 35, of Brooklyn, and the boy on the lower rooftops of two separate nearby buildings.
The father was pronounced dead at the scene and his son was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. A witness said the boy was wearing Christmas pajamas.
"Kirill was a very sweet, wonderful child, who was loved very much," his mother said. "He will forever live on in my heart."
