Pharma Exec Who Killed Her Autistic Son Is Found Dead

A multimillionaire pharmaceutical executive who was convicted of killing her 8-year-old autistic son in what she said was a failed murder-suicide plot was found dead Friday morning. Fox News reports Gigi Jordan was in 2014 handed 18 years on a manslaughter conviction in the death of Jude Mirra, and she was granted bail in 2020 as her appeals process played out. But Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday revoked her bail. WNBC reports by way of sources that Jordan was found dead in a bathtub in her Brooklyn rental minutes after midnight Friday morning and a note was nearby. A cause of death has not been established,

Jordan admitted that she administered a lethal dose of medications down her son's throat while in an upscale New York City hotel suite in 2010. She then took a number of medications herself and emailed a relative, who then phoned authorities. Jordan had argued that Jude's death was a mercy killing. She claimed one of her ex-husbands was trying to have her killed, and that were he successful, her son would be cared for by her other ex-husband, who she alleged sexually abused the boy. Both men have denied her claims, and the New York Daily News reports prosecutors argued Jordan withdrew $125,000 from her son's trust fund after giving her son his lethal dose.

In her appeal, Jordan argued that her Sixth Amendment right to a public trial was violated because the courtroom was closed to the public for 15 minutes during the two-month trial during which arguments about a website and email were heard. "The only impact of the closed proceeding was that, once the courtroom reopened, the court repeated an earlier instruction to the jury not to consume media coverage about the trial; later the same day, the court unsealed the minutes of the closed proceeding and two exhibits that had been marked during it," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office wrote in a December Supreme Court filing. (More Gigi Jordan stories.)