TRAGEDY:While cops are nearly ready to rule out foul play in the drowning death of Ninive Petrocelli (above with hubby John Petrocelli) after falling from this boat, relatives are calling for a further probe.
(VICTORALCORN.COM)
TRAGEDY: While cops are nearly ready to rule out foul play in the drowning death of Ninive Petrocelli (right, and inset with hubby John Petrocelli) after falling from this boat, relatives are calling for a further probe. (
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Foul play was all but ruled out yesterday in the death of a woman who mysteriously fell from a pleasure boat in Long Island, but her grieving family isn’t convinced it was an accident.
Detectives investigating the death of beautiful Ninive Petrocelli are waiting for an autopsy report and toxicology results before closing the investigation into what happened early Sunday morning when the 39-year-old victim vanished from a boat anchored in the ocean off Montauk Point.
Petrocelli’s husband, John, 54, told cops they were enjoying a romantic night of stargazing when Ninive went to the back of the boat to get a jacket.
“He’s been completely appropriate with us,” a police source said of husband John Petrocelli, the only other person aboard the vessel dubbed In the Clutch. “There’s really nothing suspicious about the case at this point.”
But Ninive’s brother, Blas Tejeda, 50, told The Post there are a few things that don’t add up. For one, he said, Ninive was an adventurer, who had gone parachuting, skydiving and bungee jumping. If Ninive were conscious, she would have been able to rescue herself, he said.
“I don’t think it was that difficult for her to get back up there,” Tejeda said. “My sister was a survivor.”
Tejeda stopped short of pointing fingers, but added: “I just want justice for my sister.”
According to Coast Guard officials who took the distress call, Petrocelli could hear Ninive screaming and tossed life jackets out into the dark in the direction of her cries for help.
A search party arrived within 10 minutes, but it took 12 hours for a private boater to find Ninive’s body.
Rebekah Brown, a friend of Ninive’s who had planned on being on the boat at the time, expressed grief at having delayed her trip.
“I was supposed to be out there with them,” Brown said. “Of course, you always think, ‘If I had gone maybe this wouldn’t have happened.’ It makes you wish you had gone when you were supposed to.”
Brown described Ninive, an architectural glass distributor, and John, owner of a New Jersey construction company, as a happy, giving couple who practiced Kabbalah and loved to travel.
Ninive was John’s second wife. They had been married for about four years.
“They were so happy,” Brown said. “She was the most giving, loving, cheerful, most beautiful person, inside and out. He was the best thing that ever happened to her. It was a match made in heaven.”
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland and Lorena Mongelli