Death of Socialite Found in Orchard St. Stairwell May Have Been an Accident
LOWER EAST SIDE — The 29-year-old daughter of a former New York City budget director who had worked for the American Museum of Natural History died after she was found bleeding profusely Monday morning in the stairwell of an Orchard Street apartment building.
Carlisle Brigham was discovered on the steps with wounds to her neck and face at 191 Orchard St., between East Houston and Stanton streets, the NYPD and the FDNY said. Police said she suffered a slash wound to her throat, but sources told DNAinfo.com New York that her death may have been a tragic accident from a fall.
“We’re all devastated,” said relative Barbara Brigham, 66, of Hilton Head, S.C. “She was a wonderful young woman. It’s unbelievable.”
Carlisle Brigham, a transplant from St. Louis, Mo., was estranged from her husband and was staying in the Orchard Street building with a male friend, sources said.
Sources said she had been drinking Monday morning and called another male friend to thell him, “I am not happy with my life.”
The friend then left work and rushed back to the building. When he got there, the police were already on the scene, sources said.
Brigham was married a year ago to Anthony Champalimaud, according to a New York Times wedding announcement, which said he worked as the vice president for acquisition, strategy and development for the hotel division of YTL, a Malaysian conglomerate.
At the time of her wedding she was described as an intern who helped care for the paleontology collections at the American Museum of Natural History. Her LinkedIn profile, however, said she left the museum as a model maker, artifact handler and diaroma designer in April.
Champalimaud, who sources said was away on business in London, received a master’s in real estate development from Columbia University, according to the Times wedding announcement. It said Brigham graduated from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
Her father, James R. Brigham Jr., was the chairman of the New York City Public Development Corporation from 1981 to 1985 and from was the city’s budget director from 1978 to 1981, as the city was recovering from its fiscal crisis, the announcement noted.
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