NY NY - Thomas Medlin, 15, Stony Brook, 9 Jan 2026

[investikater]

https://suffolkpd.org/Alerts/Press-Releases/ArtMID/10029/ArticleID/14352?/

View attachment 639496

Thomas Medlin, 15, of Saint James, left the Stony Brook School on Friday, January 9 at approximately 3:30 p.m. and ran to the Stony Brook Train station. He was last seen at Grand Central Station in Manhattan at approximately 5:30 p.m. the same day.

Is that a backpack in his right hand and a phone in his left hand? Where is the large object?

 

[CityKid]

It sounds like he might have taken the 6 to the F from GCT. LE originally stated they were following leads around Cherry and Rutgers Streets then Jay and Sands Streets.

I don't know if those were determined from sightings or mobile geolocation. Cherry & Rutgers coincides with the F train's path, so if it was mobile geolocation, he might have just been on the train at that point. If they have visuals, perhaps he got out at the E. Broadway stop only to find that it's quite difficult to get up to the bridge's pedestrian walkway from there.

York St. seems the likeliest exit point, which is right by the stairs to the bridge's walkway. It's about a 10-13 minute walk to the center of the bridge. If Thomas's last known location was on the bridge at 19:06, then it must have been a location fairly well along the bridge if the substantial splash was recorded four minutes later. Oh, Thomas. Society failed you.

IMO what seems to be a fairly sheltered suburban child could find that part of lower Manhattan hard to navigate in the dark, even navigating by phone. It seems quite possible that he was geolocated on the F and continued on the F to Brooklyn for York. Possibly the mother mentioning High Street (closer to the Brooklyn Bridge than the Manhattan) in Brooklyn was something she misheard. IMO Thomas had made a plan and misdirected friends with his "friend from Roblox" story. (Not that I would discount children being groomed by adults on Roblox; I just don't believe at this point that this is what happened here.)

 

[CityKid]

Thank you for letting me know about the fences. Someone had said it's a known place to go to jump, so I assumed otherwise. If people are getting past what's there, I wonder if something can be done about that. But good to know there's something.

If it turns out this boy still jumped -- where do they go from here to help prevent the next time?
It's so very sad.

RIP to my Google searches...
Tl; dr: the Manhattan Bridge is not a hugely problematic or popular attempt spot.
Anyone succeeding is IMO a tragedy, but determined people will find a way. The George Washington Bridge is the most-attempted bridge in NYC, and in the worst years in the mid 2010s, about 18 people a year succeeded. Since then, the Restoring the George project has been adding more barriers (higher fences plus netting) and the numbers have decreased. Bear in mind that it's the world's busiest vehicle bridge and the busiest stretch of road in the U.S., and about 300,000 vehicles pass over it every day, so progress is slow.
People have survived Manhattan Bridge jumps before. I can't find any current data on how many attempts have been made in recent years after all of the fencing and netting were added, but as a lifetime NYC resident, I can think of plenty of other places here people go to end their lives that are more "popular" than a bridge with pedestrian, bicycle and car lanes along with a heavy police foot patrol presence.

Restoring George Washington

Learn More About Restoring the George Washington Bridge project.

www.panynj.gov

Man Survives Suicide Jump Off Manhattan Bridge

A helicopter and police boat rushed to the East River near the

gothamist.com

 

[CityKid]

Why do people travel so far sometimes?

MOO It could be they want to spare loved ones the agony of finding them. Per this 2008 link below, "In a report published last fall called “Suicide Tourism in Manhattan, New York City, 1990–2004,” researchers at the New York Academy of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College found that of the 7,634 people who committed suicide in New York City between 1990 and 2004, 407 of them, or 5.3 percent, were nonresidents. More strikingly, nonresidents accounted for 274, or 10.8 percent, of the 2,272 suicides in Manhattan during that time."

https://nymag.com/news/features/46811/

 

[warp3dwing]

IMO what seems to be a fairly sheltered suburban child could find that part of lower Manhattan hard to navigate in the dark, even navigating by phone. It seems quite possible that he was geolocated on the F and continued on the F to Brooklyn for York. Possibly the mother mentioning High Street (closer to the Brooklyn Bridge than the Manhattan) in Brooklyn was something she misheard. IMO Thomas had made a plan and misdirected friends with his "friend from Roblox" story. (Not that I would discount children being groomed by adults on Roblox; I just don't believe at this point that this is what happened here.)

It is definitely hard to navigate that part of Manhattan. I’ve been in a similar situation down there where I had to take a very winding path of access streets to get to the bridge footpath. It wasn’t a pleasant walk. But I digress.

So, yeah, I’m thinking his phone just popped online as he passed through those F stations.

I wasn’t aware that the Roblox story came from Thomas himself and that he shared it with friends. That’s interesting. Why do that? Was he hoping to “disappear” rather than be caught committing suicide?

 

[CityKid]

Thanks very much for that.
How tall are they?
Do jumpers need to bring equipment to get over them?

The fences are about 7 feet high (guessing in comparison to my 5-foot-tall height) and they angle in, so you'd have to clear the shorter (about 4 feet high) barriers, reach the tall fences, climb them while leaning backward at an angle, then pull yourself over the top. It's only about 1.25 miles across the span, and there are subway lines, city bus and car lanes, and bicycle and pedestrian lanes all the way across, almost always under heavy use. MOO to climb the barriers undetected would be very difficult. Perhaps at the start and endpoints there are areas a determined person could breach? I've never noticed, and I've crossed it by all methods except bicycle.
I've seen a few people here posting that many suicides have occurred off the Manhattan Bridge. I would love to see those claims backed by links to news stories. MOO

Manhattan Bridge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[CityKid]

Is his Dad right about the timeline not being long enough?

"But angry dad Jim exclusively told The U.S. Sun he visited the exact spot where the authorities are questioning the drop into the water on Wednesday and said that the cops’ avenue of investigation “didn’t add up.”

“The times are not correlating. They say the splash came from the Manhattan side, but if you were running from 6.58pm, you couldn’t make it across the bridge that fast,” he said.

“There is no evidence. There are no pictures of him coming off the bridge, and the camera angles are obscured by fences and elevation changes.”"

"Suffolk County police said the footage placed Thomas on the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge at about 7:06pm on the day he left Stony Brook School and headed to Manhattan by train.

The last cellphone activity was at 7:09pm – and a minute later a splash was captured in the river.

“Here is the problem,” Jim continued. “ I walked that bridge as fast as I could yesterday; in seven minutes, I hadn’t even reached the water yet—I was still over land. It took another four minutes to finally be over the water. It doesn’t add up.”"

The bridge from the end of one street side plaza to the beginning of the cross-river street side plaza is about 1.25 miles.

Manhattan Bridge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TMich6811]

I believe the Roblox train and other simulators would allow him to basically walk the area on the game. I might check one of them out later to see, there a few different ones

 

[CityKid]

I think suicide is the most likely answer but I have a few thoughts/questions because I would think like the parents until I knew confidently this is what happened

Was the splash heard or seen?

The quote above says “captured” on camera - but many people are saying it was heard.

If the sound was caught on camera - how? Surely there is a lot of noise in the area, how close was the camera that it caught a sound they suspect confidently was jumping?

If the splash was seen - how did they not see the person who caused the splash? At least a shadow?

It’s believed his phone was wiped and he was invisible electronically
LE says last phone activity was at 7:09pm - if a phone is fully wiped and can’t be found then what does this mean? Or do they mean a ping and only the apps were wiped? If they couldn’t track his route via phone then I don’t understand this part of the statement unless they are implying location and everything was off until that exact moment?

Has anyone heard anything about police speaking with anyone on the bridge at this time? Friday night at around 7pm on a day where temps were in the high 40s would mean there was a good chance Thomas was seen in person, even if not caught on camera. IMO he could have brought a different jacket with him.

 

[CityKid]

I’m sure the splash was visibly caught on CCTV, likely from some random camera on the Manhattan side. I can’t imagine the sound of it being noticeable above the traffic noise on the bridge and the general thrum of the city. Even a visible splash wouldn’t be terribly obvious considering the grand scale of the bridge and East River.

Where was it reported his phone was wiped? I take it that they were able to geolocate his phone to the bridge (and other locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn), which would require it to still be active and connecting to towers and likely using apps that backup to the cloud because I don’t think they were pinging his phone at 7pm. It’s astounding what data is stored about a user’s activity and whereabouts.

The 7:09pm “last activity” might mean that’s the last time the phone was interacted with by Thomas, e.g., sending a text, opening an app, etc.

Adding to the other noise, the East River Ferries were running at that time. I can't imagine you'd hear the splash of a phone hitting the water.

East River - New York City Ferry Service

www.ferry.nyc

 

[CityKid]

Is that a backpack in his right hand and a phone in his left hand? Where is the large object?

MOO in that photo he looks likes he's carrying a decently sized object under his right arm.

 

[warp3dwing]

Adding to the other noise, the East River Ferries were running at that time. I can't imagine you'd hear the splash of a phone hitting the water.

East River - New York City Ferry Service

www.ferry.nyc

Absolutely. Could you even imagine how faint that sound would be compared to the ambient noise?

Half of me wants to head to the bridge today with my SPL meter, but the other half is frozen just thinking about it.

 

[anonypotomous]

I wasn’t aware that the Roblox story came from Thomas himself and that he shared it with friends. That’s interesting. Why do that? Was he hoping to “disappear” rather than be caught committing suicide?

Yes.. After listening to the podcast about him w/his mom's interview, my guess is he thought the Roblox story would be a less shameful way to disappear than suicide. The whole interview was uncomfortable and I felt so bad for him.

 

[warp3dwing]

Has anyone heard anything about police speaking with anyone on the bridge at this time? Friday night at around 7pm on a day where temps were in the high 40s would mean there was a good chance Thomas was seen in person, even if not caught on camera. IMO he could have brought a different jacket with him.

I’ve seen a lot of Reddit posts on multiple subreddits asking for public footage from taxi drivers, cyclists, etc., but I haven’t seen any public reports of Thomas being spotted by the public. Then again, if reports went directly to the black box of LE (as they should), we wouldn’t know.

If anyone has footage of Thomas, I’d wager it’d be from a cyclist’s GoPro.

 

[warp3dwing]

MOO in that photo he looks likes he's carrying a decently sized object under his right arm.

Pure speculation alert:

If Thomas was set on ending his life, perhaps he took absorptive and dark clothing with him, like a cotton sweatshirt. He might’ve discarded clothing that could act as a floatation device, like a nylon-shelled jacket.

I’m assuming LE has combed the scene for any dropped clues, but do we know what the response delay was?