Handbag designer Kate Spade found hanged in apparent suicide
NEW YORK — Kate Spade, a fashion designer known for her sleek handbags, was found hanged in the bedroom of her Park Avenue apartment Tuesday in an apparent suicide, police said. She was 55.
Spade’s body was found by a housekeeper not long after 10 a.m., police said at an afternoon news conference. Her husband and business partner Andy Spade was in the apartment at the time.
The police department’s chief of detectives, Dermot Shea, said that while investigators were still in the early stages of their inquiry, evidence including the state of the apartment and the presence of a note pointed to “a tragic suicide.”
It’s not clear how long Spade had been dead. The medical examiner will perform an autopsy.