Death by Frame: How did Sylvie Cachay die?

ID’s Death by Frame, a show that covers the deaths of celebrities and rising stars, featured the murder of Sylvie Cachay in its latest episode that aired on February 10, 2025, on Investigation Discovery. Cachay was a swimsuit designer and was strangled and drowned in a bathtub by her boyfriend Nicholas Brooks at New York’s Soho House.

Her body was discovered on December 9, 2010, and the gruesome murder had taken the news by storm. After a week of this unfortunate incident, the hotel presented a timeline, that explained her murder and helped in arresting the killer.

Let us now explore Sylvie Cachay’s murder in detail as covered in the latest Death by Frame episode.

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Who was Sylvie Cachay?

Born in Arlington, Virginia, Sylvie’s parents were Antonio Cachay and Sylvia Cachay, a surgeon and a painter, respectively. Sylvie was a Peruvian American, which meant she grew up in both Arlington and Lima and had quite an interesting childhood.

She was a Marymount College student and got her fashion degree from there. Being extremely talented she worked with the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Marc Jacobs and eventually moved on to the team of Victoria’s Secret where she became the swimsuit designer head.

Working with Victoria’s Secret till 2006, Cachay then decided to pursue her own business and started Syla, her own brand of swimsuits. While things had been going fairly well with her, she unfortunately went out of business following the massive recession of 2008.

In 2010, Cachay met Nicholas Brooks, who was the son of the Oscar winner composer Joseph Brooks.

Coming from an extremely privileged background, Nicholas had trouble sticking to a job and mainly survived on the money from his father’s trust fund. While the two got into a relationship shortly after their meeting, it was a rather dramatic one that involved frequent breakups and patch-ups.

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How was Sylvie Cachay murdered as shown in Death by Frame?

As things were going this way, the fateful night of December 9, 2010, arrived and it was around midnight when Cachay and her boyfriend came to the Soho Hotel, where Cachay was a member.

As per Cachay, they were there because her boyfriend had set the house on fire under the influence of drugs. She also mentioned that despite putting out the fire, they could not stay there because the house was smokey.

As the couple went to their designated room, a concierge was assigned to them who later revealed that they were already fighting when she left the room. Then, around 2 am, there were multiple complaints, all of which mentioned that Cachay’s room had water dripping from it.

This led the hotel staff to knock on her room and when no one responded, they broke in and found Cachay’s body in the bathtub, wearing a Rolex watch, pink underwear, and a turtleneck sweater.

She was announced dead at 3:33 am by the paramedics and upon examining her body, consistent strangulation marks were found. It did not take the police long to arrest Nicholas and charge him with Cachay’s murder.

Further investigation brought forth facts like how Nicholas abused Cachay’s money and also cheated on her. Moreover, it was also revealed that she had wanted to break up with him and just 24 hours before her death, she had also confronted him regarding him misusing her credit card and threatened to report him to the police.

In 2013, Nicholas was found guilty of second-degree murder and given 25 years to life in prison.

Death by Frame can be streamed on Max.

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