"Charged mom: I didn’t force meds down son’s throat" Associated Press October 09, 2014
NEW YORK — A pharmaceuticals millionaire charged with killing her developmentally disabled son in a deluxe hotel room told jurors Wednesday that she did not force drugs down his throat, as prosecutors maintain.
Taking the stand in her murder trial, Gigi Jordan depicted a failed murder-suicide, one her defense has said was spurred by a mother’s fears for her own life and her vulnerable son’s future.
‘‘Did you give yourself and your son an amount of drugs that you believed would take your life and his?’’ asked one of her attorneys, Allan Brenner.
‘‘Yes, I did,’’ Jordan said, her voice quavering.
But she denied the scenario prosecutors have painted: that she climbed on top of the comatose 8-year-old, forcibly opened his mouth, and shoved a lethal dose of prescription medication down his throat with a syringe.
Police officers found her son, Jude Mirra, dead of a drug overdose, and Jordan on the floor nearby, in a pricey suite at Manhattan’s Peninsula Hotel in February 2010. More than 5,800 prescription pills were scattered around the room, prosecutors said. Some emergency responders have said Jordan was incoherent; others described her as composed.
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