A mother who drowned her son with autism then faking his abduction is now facing the death penalty.
45-year-old Patricia Ripley from Florida has been accused of killing her son Alejandro by drowning him in a canal before making up a kidnapping story.
During a hearing on Thursday, prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against Ripley. Under Florida law, a person indicted by a grand jury can face the death penalty.
The mother has been charged with first-degree murder, filing a false police report, aggravated child abuse, and kidnapping, the Miami Herald reported.
She initially claimed that she was ambushed by two black men in Miami on May 21 and said that the attackers took her phone, demanded drugs, and kidnapped her son, prompting an Amber Alert.
Alejandro’s body was later found in a canal at the Miccosukee Golf and County Club as officers continued to question the mother.
According to an arrest affidavit, Ripley gave ‘conflicting statements.’ She was later confronted with a video showing her first attempt to drown her son and testimonies of witnesses.
A CCTV footage obtained by Univision shows the mother walking with her child before shoving his head into a canal. She immediately ran away and people who heard the screaming rushed to save Alejandro.
Ripley then took him to another canal at the golf club where no one could save her son.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said: “Unfortunately, when she took him to the second canal, and there was no one there. She tried it once, and people rescued him. He was alive. He could have stayed alive. She intended, from all the facts of the case, to kill him.”
She also explained that because the 9-year-old was nonverbal, he was not able to tell his rescuers what had happened.
“He can’t say anything to his rescuers,” the prosecutor said. “We talk about children being voiceless. This is another level of voicelessness. He was incapable of saying that ‘mommy put me in the water.’”
Ripley remains in jail without bond.
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