Reports: Model dies in fall from NYC building

updated 12:25 p.m. ET June 29, 2008

NEW YORK - A European Vogue cover model fell to her death from her Manhattan apartment building Saturday in an apparent suicide, published reports said.

Ruslana Korshunova, 20, died around 2:30 p.m. in a fall from a building on Water Street, in Manhattan's Financial District, The New York Post, the Daily News and Newsday reported. The newspapers cited unnamed officials and police.

Police said the fall was under investigation. Korushnova's New York agency and a spokeswoman for medical examiners did not immediately return telephone messages.

Originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, the almond-eyed, flowing-haired Korshunova appeared in advertisements and on runways for such designers as Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci and DKNY. British Vogue hailed her as "a face to be excited about" in 2005.

Her break came when modeling booker Debbie Jones noticed her while perusing an in-flight magazine article about Korushnova's hometown of Almaty, according to the Vogue report.

"She looked like something out of a fairytale!" Jones told the magazine. "We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did!"

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