Taxpayer dollars will help cover the defense costs for a us-regions woman charged with first-degree murder in the drowning death of her autistic 9-year-old son.
us-regions Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick ruled in an order released Thursday that Patricia Ripley, 46, is indigent for certain costs that include depositions, private investigators and experts who specialize in trying to keep defendants off us-regions Death Row, the Miami Herald reported. Similar death penalty cases have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in experts, investigators and other expenses.
Prosecutors objected, pointing out that her family owns an expensive home in South Florida and land in the Dominican Republic.
COAST GUARD IN MIAMI OFFLOADS $94.6M WORTH OF COCAINE
Ripley is still currently responsible for paying the $300,000 being charged by her private defense lawyers. If the judge finds her indigent for attorney fees, she’ll be represented by the miami” target=”_blank”>Miami-Dade<, police said. An Amber Alert was issued for the boy. The child’s body was found the next day in a canal a few miles (kilometers) from the area she said the abduction had taken place.
Investigators were initially suspicious of Ripley’s changing accounts of what happened. They learned that earlier in the evening, Ripley was caught on surveillance cameras pushing the boy into a canal, according to authorities. A bystander rescued the boy from the water.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Police said the mother pushed the child into the water again at a different spot about an hour later and he drowned.
When police confronted Ripley, they said, she acknowledged making up the kidnapping story. She also admitted to leading the child to the canal where he died and said, “he’s going to be in a better place,” according to the police report.
