Hotel guest goes to roof for view, falls 10 floors to his death

A hotel guest who had gone to the roof of the Dupont Circle Hotel to see the sights shortly after New Year’s was killed when he fell into a boiler shaft and tumbled 10 floors to the basement, according to the D.C. police and fire departments.

It took firefighters about an hour to retrieve the man’s body. It happened Sunday shortly before 2:30 a.m. at the nine-story hotel in the 1500 block of New Hampshire Avenue NW. 

“It looks like a fall,” said Rachel Schaerr, a spokeswoman for the D.C. police. “He went up to the roof to catch a really good view.”

Police identified the victim as John Leonard, 23, of Herndon, Va. Schaerr said Leonard was a guest at the hotel and that he was on the roof with another person, possibly his girlfriend, the Washington Post reported.