Local police have ruled out the possibility of homicide on a vice mayor of Huzhou city in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, who died after falling from the 29th story of an apartment building on early Saturday morning.

The judgement was made after on-the-spot investigation, interviews of witnesses, reviews of video data and autopsy, the Huzhou Public Security Bureau said on Sunday.

Witnesses said the deceased, Ni Lingmei, had got into a dispute with at least one of her family members before she died.

The police initially identified that Ni fell from the building after she ascended the windowsill of the toilet room of her home.

According to the security bureau, Ni accompanied her hospitalized mother from Thursday night to Friday morning, had lunch with her husband and parents-in-law on Friday noon and treated guests from Shanghai at a hotel on Friday night. After the dinner, she visited her mother again at hospital and went back home at around 10:00 p.m.

A guard surnamed Shen who was on duty Friday night told the local police that he heard voices of a quarrel between a man and a woman out of Ni's home prior to her falling from the building. Ni's husband admitted that he and Ni had a quarrel at that night.

It is said that Ni's son, who studied abroad, sent a text message to ask his parents to keep calm about 20 minutes before Ni's falling.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2009)