NYC judge's son who killed mom then himself was 'rudderless'

‘Rudderless and depressed’ son, 26, of NYC SCOTUS judge who leaped naked to his death after bludgeoning his ‘adoring’ mom with a lamp spent days drinking and getting high at home after flunking out of Rhodes where he was a hard-partying frat boy

  • Douglas Solomon, 26, killed himself after bludgeoning his mother to death last week 
  • The hard-partying frat boy dropped out of Rhodes in 2014 and had been spending his time at home drinking alone in his room and smoking pot
  • His parents, Charles and Diane, spoke about his future the night before he died
  • Police sources say he beat Diane to death with a lamp shade then killed himself
  • He was found dead ‘butt naked’ in the street after jumping 16 floors to his death
  • Friends say he had no purpose, without ‘anything going on’ 
  • His sister Leah, 28, is successful and lives in Kips Bay, New York City 

The son of a retried New York City Supreme Court judge who jumped to his death naked from his family’s 16th floor apartment after beating his mother to death with a lamp was ‘rudderless’ after flunking out of college, where he’d been a hard-parting frat boy, friends have said. 

Douglas Solomon, 26, was found dead and ‘butt naked’ in the street outside his family’s Upper East Side apartment on Tuesday morning.

His 56-year-old mother Diane was found inside the apartment. She had been beaten to death with a lamp shade. 

Douglas’s motive for the murder suicide remains unclear, but friends told The New York Post he was aimless and living at home without purpose years after flunking out of Rhodes, a prestigious liberal arts college in Tennessee. 

Hard-partying frat boy: Douglas Solomon is shown in 2014, during his freshman year at Rhodes in Tennessee. He dropped out of the college in his freshman year 

Diane Gallagher, 65, was beaten to death by her son with a lamp. Police say the night before, she and her husband had been discussing what to do with their ‘rudderless’ son 

Douglas Solomon’s body was found in the courtyard of the apartment complex (highlighted)

Police outside the luxury apartment building on 79th Street where the family have lived for years 

His mom had been ‘so proud’ of him for getting into the school, friends said. 

‘He displayed a lot of signs of depression. He was not going out to clubs or doing much of anything. 

‘He was anti-social…it sounded like he didn’t want to be reached out to. 

‘You don’t want to ask what’s going on to a person who has nothing going on,’ one of his former classmates told The Post. 

Another said the only possible explanation for the violent murder suicide was that ‘something snapped’ in him.

‘Something snapped inside of Doug. It must have been a 30-second lapse of judgment and his life changed. I can’t believe that any of it was premeditated. 

Solomon, right, with friends outside the famed Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn 

Douglas (left) with his sister Leah, grandmother, and mother. Friends said he didn’t have much going on and hadn’t for years 

Diane, shown during a vacation, was ‘so proud’ when Douglas was accepted into Rhodes in 2014, friends said 

Douglas and his sister in 2017, in a photo she uploaded to Facebook in honor of National Sibling Day. Unlike her aimless brother, Leah has a career in NYC working for an acquisition firm 

Solomon and Gallagher (left) are pictured with Charles Solomon (left), a retired NYC Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon, who oversaw many high profile cases over the 30 year career 

‘He sees his mother unconscious and can’t live with himself. He didn’t want to rot away for 30 years in jail. He was such a nice kid.

Now, to be remembered for this, is awful,’ the friend said. 

His father, retried NYC Supreme Court judge Charles Solomon was not at home at the time of the pair’s deaths. 

The previous night, police sources say he and his wife had been discussing Doug’s future. 

The 26-year-old did not seem to have a job and he was not studying. He had dropped out of Rhodes in 2014, during his freshman year, despite having a promising future in sports. 

In the years that followed, he spent his time quietly with his family but was prone to smoking pot and drinking at home, according to his friends. 

Doug’s older sister, Leah, also lives in the city. She works for an acquisition firm and lives in Kips Bay. 

Neither Leah nor Charles has publicly commented on the killings.  

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