MIAMI (Court TV) — A Florida mother charged with the murder of her son has asked a judge to suppress incriminating statements she made to police, saying they were coerced.
Patricia Ripley appears in court on May 12, 2026. (WPLG)
Patricia Ripley, 51, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, kidnapping and falsely reporting a crime. Ripley was arrested after initially telling police that her 9-year-old son, Alejandro, was kidnapped during an armed carjacking near a Home Depot. The child’s body was found the next morning, floating in a canal.
Prosecutors say surveillance video shows Ripley pushing the child into a canal, where witnesses stepped in to save him, before she drove to a second area and successfully led the child into the water, where he drowned.
Detectives said in documents reviewed by Court TV that after first claiming she was the victim of a carjacking, Ripley admitted to killing her child and told them, “He’s going to be in a better place.”
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Ripley’s attorneys argued in a motion to suppress the defendant’s statements that her alleged confession is invalid because of the conditions in which it was given. For hours during the interrogation, Ripley was left alone in an interrogation room without her medications. “In spite of repeatedly assuring Ms. Ripley they’d be right back, the detectives would desert Ms. Ripley for hours, leaving her not knowing when or if they were returning,” the motion said. “Repeated knocks on the door went unanswered, requests for her medication ignored, causing her to wonder when and if she would ever be allowed to leave. For a woman who suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks when home under normal conditions and with her prescribed medication, the psychological abuse was patent.”
The motion says that Ripley was kept awake for more than 36 hours by the time she gave her alleged confession to detectives.
Beyond those allegations, Ripley’s defense said the detectives who interrogated her used illegal coercive tactics by attempting to use religion to pressure her to talk to them. One detective asked her, “What do you think God is going to be saying right now by you holding back something so horrible, you know, that right now the only thing you can bring him … is repentance.” Ripley’s attorneys say that using a defendant’s religious beliefs that way amounts to illegal coercion.
Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez has taken the motion under consideration. She has said she will issue a ruling at Ripley’s next court date, scheduled for June 23.
If Ripley is convicted, she faces a potential death sentence.
