Teacher commits suicide

Former Bronx High School of Science teacher Alfa Choice, 29, jumped to her death off the Tappan Zee Bridge at 9 a.m. on July 12, state police said. 

Ms. Choice, who taught biology and general science at Bronx Science from September 2004 to August 2007, drove onto the bridge in a Chevy Suburban with boyfriend Christopher Shears, 44, climbed naked to its highest point and jumped, falling more than 150 feet into the Hudson River. 

Ms. Choice died instantly and Mr. Shears, also naked, was rushed to Nyack Hospital in critical condition. He is expected to survive. 

According to her Rate My Teachers webpage, Ms. Choice was well liked. 

Ms. Choice resigned from Bronx Science on Aug. 30, 2007 to peruse a degree from Cornell University, according to the Department of Education. Bronx Science Principal Valerie Reidy did not respond to requests for comment. 

According to online court records, Ms. Choice was having financial difficulty. She was a defendant in a number of civil suits with credit card and financial agencies. 

While some news reports say Ms. Choice and her boyfriend, who were holding hands when they jumped, were in a cult, police investigators said the suicide was not part of a ritual. Investigators refused to comment on allegations that Ms. Choice hesitated just before jumping but was pushed by her boyfriend. 

According to new reports, Ms. Choice met her boyfriend — 15 years her senior — when she was just 16. Sources told the Daily News that the couple developed a strange relationship and Ms. Choice eventually pulled away from her friends. 

Dozens have attempted suicide by jumping off the Tappan Zee Bridge in the last 10 years alone. They range from a distraught teenager to an heiress, who waited 16 years to leap from the same structure as her father. In recent years, 24-hour suicide telephones reading “Life Is Worth Living” have been installed on the bridge and the height of the side rails has been increased. 

By the end of last week, an R.I.P. Alfa Choice Facebook page had amassed more than 100 followers. Many commented about and posted pictures of their years with Ms. Choice at Aquinas High School in the Bronx, where she attended. The images show groups of uniformed students, smiling with their arms around each other. 

“Alfa will truly be missed. I remember taking a long bus ride with her and our moms, to our uniform company the summer before freshman year. We didn’t know what to expect from high school, but we laughed and talked all the way there and back. She had such a great spirit and was a good friend,” one commenter wrote.

— Reporting contributed by Graham Kates