May 23, 2020 | 12:50pm
A Miami-Dade woman who claimed two carjackers kidnapped her young son with autism is now facing a murder charge after she apparently admitted killing the boy, telling cops, “he’s going to be in a better place,” according to reports.
Patricia Ripley, 47, was arrested about 3 a.m. Saturday in the death of 9-year-old Alejandro Ripley, who was nonverbal, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Alejandro’s body was found in a canal near a golf course close to where he was last seen late Thursday.
Ripley initially told authorities two men in a light blue sedan cut her off while she was driving, blocked her van and demanded drugs. When she insisted she didn’t have any, one man took her cellphone and grabbed her son before they drove off, she had claimed.
The tall tale prompted Florida cops to issue a statewide Amber Alert for Alejandro, who was nonverbal.
But after hours of questioning and confronted with surveillance footage of the married mother of two pushing the child into the canal, Ripley came clean, according to the Miami Herald.
