The Brooklyn mom who eerily told cops her missing 11-year-old non-verbal autistic son never existed is now being held on Rikers Island, law enforcement sources said Monday.
The boy – identified by cops as Jacob Pritchett – was nowhere to be found when child welfare officials, and later police, swept the Howard Avenue home in late September and early October, the sources said.
Now, his 53-year-old mom – who is not officially being identified by police – is being held on Rikers Island on a Brooklyn Family Court warrant for failure to produce the child, the sources said.
She allegedly flew into a rage during an Oct. 1 NYPD visit and claimed she lived alone with no children, according to the sources.
NYPD detectives ultimately brought a K9 dog into the apartment, which detected traces of human blood in or around the refrigerator, the sources said.
But investigators found no signs of the boy — who neighbors reported hadn’t been seen for about two months, cops and sources said.
Following that visit, Pritchett’s mom was taken to the hospital, where she was considered an “emotionally disturbed person,” the sources said.
About a week later, the NYPD swept the High Acres Landfill in Fairport, Western New York – more than 300 miles from the home where Pritchett had lived with his mom – for any signs of the boy, according to WHAM.
Cops on Friday released a computer-generated image that predicted what Pritchett would look like today.
His whereabouts were still unknown Monday.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, on X @NYPDTips.
All calls are strictly confidential.
