A woman fatally shot herself Tuesday at a sprawling Connecticut residential property owned by New York investment banker Michael Kramer of Ducera Partners, authorities said Wednesday.
Neither the corporate restructuring expert Kramer, 47, nor his family was at the property at the time that a 41-year-old Queens, NY, woman shot herself in the head, according to police. The property has up to nine houses on it, according to sources who spoke with CNBC.
On Wednesday, New Canaan police said they had received a call at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday that a woman — later identified as Heather Sturtz of Queens, New York — was "armed with a handgun and threatening suicide."
"Sturtz was reported to be on the property of a private residence located at 721 North Wilton Road," said New Canaan Police Chief Leon Krolikowski said. "Arriving officers located Sturtz and found that the she had a single gunshot wound. Sturtz was treated at the scene but did not survive."
After performing an autopsy, the Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner's office said Wednesday that Sturtz's death had been ruled to be a suicide.
A friend of Michael Kramer said Kramer and his immediate family had been out of the country when the shooting occurred and learned about it when they returned Tuesday night.
"No member of the Kramer family was involved or injured in the incident," the friend said. "It wasn't in Mike's house."
"They had no idea" what had happened, the friend said. "They are obviously upset about the incident." The friend said that Kramer has two young children.
A lawyer for Kramer, Lisa Solbakken, said, "I'm aware of it" when asked about the shooting but she declined to comment further.
Kramer's 7.7-acre property is one of the most valuable in New Canaan, according to the New Canaan News. The newspaper noted that the property is assessed at $14.5 million and has a 41,000-square-foot main house.
Clients of Kramer's firm include a group of hedge funds that own Puerto Rico-issued debt, according to published reports.
According to Kramer's biography on Ducera's website, Kramer was a founding partner of Kramer Capital Partners and had been a partner at Greenhill. He also worked at Perella Weinberg.
Perella Weinberg last fall sued Kramer and three other former partners who had formed Ducera, alleging they had set up Ducera while still being employed at Perella Weinberg, and that they had tried to entice other members of their team to join Ducera.
In an interview with The New York Times after the complaint was filed, Solbakken called the lawsuit "nonsense."