’TIL DEATH DO US PART: Fernando Brazier jumped into the Harlem River, killing himself, only hours after he married his longtime sweetheart, Trudian Hay (right).
A Bronx groom hurled himself into the Harlem River over the weekend — just hours after exchanging marriage vows with his longtime love.
Fernando Brazier, 28, took the fatal leap after leaving a suicide note for his bride, Trudian Hay, at the front desk of the Radisson Hotel in New Rochelle, where the couple and family members spent the night after celebrating their wedding.
“He said [in the note] he couldn’t take it anymore, and to take care of the kids,” Brazier’s sister, Shawna Weeks, told The Post.
“He left his ring in the envelope.”
Police sources said Brazier’s note told Hay that he could be found at the bottom of the river, not far from a Pathmark supermarket and Dyckman Street on the Manhattan side.
Witnesses said the just-married groom walked out of the Radisson and into a cab sometime before 9 a.m. Sunday.
He made his way to 55 Richman Plaza about 15 minutes away in The Bronx, where he jumped either from a building or the promenade behind it, police sources said.
An FDNY Marine unit found Brazier’s body in the waters near Roberto Clemente State Park, slightly upstream from where he’s believed to have jumped, around 3 p.m., the sources added.
The Medical Examiner’s Office is awaiting toxicology reports to determine the cause of death, but said there was no sign of foul play.
His shattered bride went to the ME’s office with his mother, Paula, to identify his body.
“She was stroking his head,” Paula Brazier-Weeks said of Hay. “She said, ‘He was having trouble, and when he has trouble he goes for a walk, but he always comes back. But he didn’t come back this time.’ ”
Brazier and Hay, 26, had dated since they were teenagers and doted on their two young daughters, ages 5 and 2 1/2, Hay’s relatives said.
But Brazier had been depressed for several months, and he and Hays had had counseling, his sister said.
“He would tell me that Trudy is a good person, [but] he didn’t want to marry her; he was feeling like he was pressured,” his sister Shawna said.
She said that Thursday night, at a family dinner, “you could see it in his eyes. He looked like he didn’t sleep for days. His eyes were red. And they’d well up.”
Brazier, who came from a divorced home, “wanted the children raised in one house” with both parents, she said.
Brazier’s brother, Kevin Weeks, recalled, “He always said, ‘Certain things, you have to do.’ ”
Brazier’s grieving bride was with her parents and family yesterday, too distraught to speak after their long-planned wedding weekend went tragically wrong.
“She’s not doing good, she’s not doing good at all,” her mom, Beverly, said. “We have no idea why he did what he did.”
The couple had “a beautiful ceremony” at the Riverview in Hastings-on-Hudson on Saturday, capped by a reception where most guests had no hint the groom was troubled, their relatives said.
“The day of the wedding, on the dance floor, he was happy,” Brazier’s mom said. “He was looking at his girls — they had beautiful dresses on.”
But Brazier’s aunt, Lee Brown, said she walked up to him at one point before the wedding ceremony and asked if he was sure he wanted to go through with it.
“He said, ‘It’s too late now,’ ” Brown said.
The couple spent the night at the Radisson, and the next morning, Brazier “said he was going out for a walk,” a relative of Hay’s said.
When he didn’t come back, Hay learned from hotel staffers that he’d taken off in a taxi. The receptionist gave her the note he’d left.
New Rochelle police were called to the hotel around 10:40 a.m. Based on conversations with Hay, they put out a missing-person alert.
Hay had recently graduated college, her family said, and Brazier worked as a night security guard and was going to college to be a nurse.
His brother, Kevin, said Brazier often expressed his feelings in rap songs and recently sent him one about suicide called “Ambulance and Call in the Cavalry.”
Additional reporting by Doug Auer, Larry Celona, Gabriella Bass and Andy Campbell