PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Montgomery County woman accused of murdering her 11-year-old son while he slept told police she killed him because she was concerned about family finances.
Around 7 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a home on the 500 block of Privet Road in Horsham. The boy's father, Daniel Whitehead, called 911 after he noticed the door to the master bedroom was locked and his wife's 2019 Toyota Highlander was missing.
He broke through the bedroom door and found the body of 11-year-old Matthew Whitehead on the bed, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.
The boy’s mother, 50-year-old Ruth DiRienzo-Whitehead, whom the boy had spent the night with, was nowhere to be found.
Her SUV was found later in the day — more than 120 miles away in Cape May, New Jersey, partially submerged in the ocean just off Beach Avenue.
Police said after abandoning the car, DiRienzo-Whitehead walked to Wildwood Crest, where she was apprehended.
An autopsy showed Matthew died of strangulation. Investigators believe DiRienzo-Whitehead strangled her son with a belt after he went to sleep, around 9:30 p.m., then fled.
DiRienzo-Whitehead told investigators that Matthew had been crying over the family's "financial difficulties," according to the affidavit of probable cause, and she did not want her son to "grow up with these struggles."
Detectives also found a men's belt on the floor of the driver’s side of her car.
Daniel Whitehead told investigators it wasn’t uncommon for their son to sleep in their bed. He slept in another room that night.
Matthew was a sixth-grader at Germantown Academy. In an email sent to parents, the school said Matthew was "the embodiment of love, promise and goodness." The school is making counselors available to students and community members.
DiRienzo-Whitehead has been charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder, and possessing an instrument of crime. She is being held in Cape May County and will be extradited back to Montgomery County.
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