A 20-year-old woman identified by local media as Kazakh supermodel Ruslana Korshunova (photo) plunged to her death from a Manhattan apartment during the week-end in an apparent suicide.

Police said that the woman was discovered dead in front of an apartment building in downtown Manhattan, near the financial district and the South Street Seaport tourist area.

Korshunova had graced the covers of European editions of Elle and Vogue and walked the catwalks for designers like Betsey Johnson and Jill Stuart. Several witnesses described seeing her plunge from a ninth-floor balcony in the Manhattan building on Saturday afternoon.

Local media, citing police sources, said that there was no sign of a struggle inside her apartment and that Korshunova was believed to have leaped to her death. A friend told the New York Post, however, that Korshunova had just returned from a modeling job in Paris and seemed ?on top of the world.?

Korshunova had been profiled in British Vogue in recent years as a new face to watch, and she was featured in ads by Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior and DKNY.