The daughter of a slain newspaper heiress was struggling financially, hitting the bottle hard and flirting with death in the years before her suicide plunge off the Tappan Zee Bridge, family and friends said yesterday.
Annie Morell, who had always been distraught over the brutal murder of her mom, Anne Scripps Douglas, spiraled out of control as her inheritance dried up and she tried to sell her home, a pal said.
A 38-year-old homebody, Morell placed her townhouse in Rye Brook, Westchester, on the market a year ago.
Morell jumped Thursday night from nearly the same spot on the Tappan Zee where her stepfather, Scott Douglas, plunged on New Year’s Eve 1994. His suicide came hours after he bludgeoned Scripps Douglas, the great-great-granddaughter of newspaper owner James E. Scripps.