2 AIDS Victims Bound by Sash Leap 35 Stories to Their Deaths

Two AIDS victims tied together with a drapery sash leaped from a window of their 35th floor apartment in a double suicide, authorities said today.

The bloody and crumpled bodies of the two men were found Thursday by several passersby at the base of the apartment building in Manhattan.

The men--Charles Villalonga, 42, and Gilbert Rodriguez, 44--were declared dead at the scene.

Police investigators said the victims’ physicians told them the two men had been diagnosed as having AIDS and were beginning to feel the effects of the usually fatal disease.

Police said it appeared the two had planned the suicide in detail.

After tying themselves together with a sash from bedroom drapery, police said, they unscrewed a safety bar at the top of window. Ordinarily, police said, the window would open only 5 inches.

The New York Daily News reported that Villalonga was worked with the market agreements section of the U.S. Agriculture Department. The paper said he commuted regularly to his office in Washington until he went on sick leave earlier in the year.

AIDS, a disease which results in the failure of the immune system, leaves its victims prone to a number of infections and some kinds of cancer. The disease has no cure.

The paper said Villalonga’s wife was very distraught and could not be interviewed by detectives in the hours after the deaths.

Police said autopsies were being performed in an effort to confirm the physicians’reports that the men were suffering from AIDS.