A 19-year-old woman has died after falling from the roof of an abandoned building in Georgia that has been used as a filming location for Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Just before 1 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, DeKalb County police and firefighters responded to an incident on Emory University’s Briarcliff campus, according to reports from Fox 5 Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 11 Alive.
Investigators believe the woman was exploring the vacant structure with a group of others when she fell. Authorities suspect the group accessed the five-story building by climbing over a chain-link fence, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the woman as 19-year-old Leah Palmirotto.
Police have not said why the group entered the building and are continuing to investigate Palmirotto’s death.
In 2022, 11 Alive reported that the abandoned hospital off Briarcliff Road was expected to be demolished to make way for a senior living facility. However, the structure remains standing.
The building, known as Building A, was constructed in the 1960s as the Georgia Mental Health Institute psychiatric hospital before Emory University purchased it in the 1990s, according to WTOC11.
The site has since been used as the Hawkins National Laboratory in Stranger Things and has also appeared in The Vampire Diaries. Despite not being open to the public, the property has drawn interest from urban explorers, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.
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Stranger Things has been filmed in multiple locations across Georgia. New episodes of the series are set to arrive on Netflix on Christmas Day, followed by the series finale on New Year’s Eve.
The DeKalb County Police Department, DeKalb County Fire Rescue and Emory University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
