A noted 95-year-old children’s-book illustrator killed herself in her Chelsea apartment Tuesday morning, witnesses and police said.
Madeleine Gekiere was found dead with a plastic bag over her head by one of her good friends at around 11 a.m. A note on her door said, “Do not enter ’cause it’s toxic.”
She died from helium inhalation, police said.
Gekiere illustrated Ray Bradbury’s 1955 novel “Switch on the Night.” She never met Bradbury, but said she enjoyed working with him.
“I never got any royalties on my other books,” Gekiere told a children’s-book blogger in 2012. “But Ray Bradbury, no problem, he shared the profits . . . Just a very nice man.”
Bradbury even sent her an inscribed first edition of “Fahrenheit 451” that said, “For Madeleine Gekiere — with the admiration and thanks of her collaborator.”
Just before she killed herself, Gekiere slipped Scoot Lifschutz, who lives below her, a note. He didn’t read it until he was on the subway.
“She didn’t enjoy life anymore,” Lifschutz told the Post. “She had tried to kill herself before.”