Ninive Petrocelli, Manhattan woman who fell off of boat and drown, no foul play suspected
An Upper West Side woman boating with her businessman husband in the Hamptons mysteriously fell overboard in the middle of the night and drowned yesterday, authorities said.
Ninive Petrocelli, age 39, was found floating in the water about five miles south of where she vanished.
John Petrocelli, age 54, told authorities he hadn’t seen his wife of four years fall into the water but heard splashing and screams as the boat was anchored in the darkness about two miles off of Long Island’s eastern tip in Block Island Sound.
Police believe Petrocelli fell overboard as she was walking from the bow of the 45-foot vessel to the cabin to get a sweater, according to Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick.
“There is no evidence of criminality,” Fitzpatrick said.
The medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine how Petrocelli died, and detectives are expected to investigate whether alcohol was a factor in her apparent fall.
Ninive Petrocelli owned Cristol Inc., an architectural glass wholesale distribution company based in Manhattan that does global business. John Petrocelli is president of Petrocelli Construction Corp., a Palisades Park, N.J.-based company he founded in the 1980s that has worked on luxury residential and commercial projects from the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the Upper West Side.