The Wall Street financial crisis devoured brokerage firm Bear Stearns in March, then the life of a veteran gay manager at the firm.

Plagued with personal problems, Barry Fox jumped 29 stories to his death after the demise of Bear Stearns, where he worked for nine years as a research analyst.

Barry Fox, 51, was a gay man who shared his home with his longtime partner Fred Philippi.

Philippi, 66, recently shared his story of loss with the Wall Street Journal. He said Fox was vexed with personal problems when the news that he wouldn't be hired by J.P. Morgan Chase found him, leaving him devastated. “This Bear Stearns thing happened to be the last straw that broke his spirit,” Philippi said.

J.P. Morgan, which purchased Bear Stearns in the spring, did hire nearly 7,000 of the firm's employees, but Fox was unable to secure one of those jobs.

Despite suffering the paranoid-inducing brain disorder schizophrenia, Fox had excelled at Bear Stearns, where he was named managing director in 2002.

On the day that Fox learned he would not be joining J.P Morgan, he called Philippi, “I've been severed,” he said calmly.

That night, in their Fort Lee, New Jersey apartment, Philippi says he found Fox in the master bathroom, overdosed on prescription drugs. Philippi said he wanted to call an ambulance, but Fox insisted he wanted to die in his own home. With his body purged, it appeared the combination of Valium and Restoril were not enough to take his life, and the pair went off to sleep.

At about four in the morning, Philippi says he woke up to find Fox missing from their bed. He searched for him in their apartment, but instead found him on the ground below their 29th-floor balcony, dead.

The Wall Street Journal intimated the relationship the two men shared with the coded phrase “longtime companion” and reported few personal details about the life the two men shared. Online readers, however, clearly shared Philippi's pain, many of whom left comments expressing sympathy at his loss.