A Pennsylvania mother is accused of murdering her 11-year-old son in Horsham then fleeing to the New Jersey shore.
The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office says 50-year-old Ruth DiRienzo-Whitehead is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Matthew Whitehead.
According to the affidavit, DiRienzo-Whitehead told detectives her son had been “crying off and on all day over the family’s financial difficulties.”
She allegedly told detectives she did not want her son to grow up “with these struggles” so she strangled him with her husband’s belt as he slept.
Police were called to the family’s home in the 500 block of Privet Road just after 7 a.m. Tuesday after the boy’s father found him dead.
According to the D.A.’s office, an autopsy confirmed Matthew had been strangled.
Investigators say DiRienzo-Whitehead killed her son after he went to sleep around 9:30 p.m. Monday, then drove the family’s SUV to Cape May, New Jersey.
She drove the vehicle into the ocean off Beach Avenue, investigators say, and once the vehicle could no longer be driven she walked to Wildwood Crest.
That’s where DiRienzo-Whitehead was taken into custody.
The criminal complaint from Wildwood Crest shows officers were on the lookout for DiRienzo-Whitehead on Tuesday morning after her SUV was discovered.
Officers were watching a home on Seaview Avenue when they saw a woman matching her description.
As they approached and called her name, DiRienzo-Whitehead allegedly said to the officers “I know what I did.”
She was held by Wildwood Crest police, then questioned by Montgomery County detectives and Horsham police.
A search of the SUV turned up a men’s black dress belt on the driver’s side floor of the vehicle, the D.A.’s office said.
DiRienzo-Whitehead is currently being held in Cape May County and is awaiting extradition to Montgomery County.
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