19-Year-Old Dies After Falling from Abandoned Building Where 'Stranger Things' was Filmed While Exploring it with Friends

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Leah Palmirotto
Leah Palmirotto (left) and the Briarcliff building used as a filming location for "Hawkins Lab" in "Stranger Things." Facebook

A 19-year-old woman died after falling from an abandoned building where "Stranger Things" was filmed in Atlanta.

Police said the woman, identified as Leah Palmirotto, fell from the roof of an abandoned hospital building at 1256 Briarcliff Road. Authorities said they responded to reports of a fall at the location, at around 1 a.m., where the woman was pronounced dead on scene.

Police told WSB-TV that the woman and her friends were exploring the Briarcliff building, which was used as a filming location for Netflix's Stranger Things.

Investigators say the group likely entered the five-story Building A, built in the 1960s, by climbing over a chain-link fence. Officials have not said how many people were with the woman at the time of her death. One parent said her son, part of a group that explores abandoned places, called her, saying he was in trouble, according to WSB-TV.

The property used to be the former Georgia Mental Health Institute, which Emory University purchased in the 1990s. It's still owned by the university and has sat empty for years before it became a popular location for filming movies and TV shows.

It was listed among more than 40 buildings that the university rents out to filmmakers, but its webpage was taken down on Friday. The building is best known as the set of Hawkins National Laboratory in the hit Netflix series.

Shows such as Ozark, Black Lightning, Sweet Magnolias, and WandaVision, as well as movies such as Fast Man, have all filmed at the eerie and versatile Briarcliff Building.

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