Suicide likely in plunge

A WOMAN who took a fatal plunge from the 16th floor of an Upper West Side building suffered from mental illness, police sources said Thursday.

After initially thinking foul play was possible, cops are investigating the death of 62-year-old Diane Brammer as a suicide.

Nobody saw Brammer jump from the 16-story apartment building on West End Ave. near W. 100th St. about 6:10 p.m. Wednesday. She landed on a second-floor landing and died at the scene.

Brammer arrived to visit a 74-year-old friend on the building’s top floor about two hours before jumping, sources said.

An hour into the visit, her host excused himself to use the bathroom. While in the bathroom, he heard a loud bang believed to be the sound of Brammer leaving and slamming the apartment door.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Brammer was no longer there. Cops believe she jumped later from elsewhere in the building.

Brammer had been institutionalized at a psychiatric center for the past four years, police said.

Relatives told police that Brammer got permission to leave her psychiatric institution Wednesday so she could visit family, but had told them she was feeling suicidal.