Death of woman who fell from UIC building now deemed an accident

A death of a woman who fell from a building at the University of Illinois at Chicago campus — an incident initially deemed a suicide — has now been determined to be an accident after new information came to light.

Yuliya Fedorova, 21, plummeted two floors from a staircase on the outside of the Behavioral Sciences Building at 1007 W. Harrison St. about 4 a.m. May 8, authorities said.

Fedorova, of the 20500 block of North Margaret in Lincolnshire, was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:38 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy found Fedorova died of blunt force trauma to her head and neck, and her death was initially ruled a suicide, according to the medical examiner’s office.

However, that finding was revised after new information was discovered, said Frank Shuftan, a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office. The manner of her death is now considered to be an accident, he said Friday.

UIC spokeswoman Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez said the woman was not a student and had no affiliation with the university. Other people were present at the time, some of them UIC students.

UIC police were conducting a death investigation.