Murder of Alejandro Ripley

At 8:30 PM on Thursday May 21st 2020, nonverbal autistic 9-year old Alejandero Ripley was found dead submerged in a canal next to the Miccosukee Golf and Country Club golf course in Miami. Prosecutors later charged Ripley's mother Patrica Ripley after she admitted to the crime. Witnesses first saw Ripley drowning in a canal on Kendall Drive an hour earlier, and they managed to pull him out safely. However, he would be driven to another canal on 62nd Street where he would be killed. Prosecutor Fernandez Rundle said in an interview that "She tried it once, and people rescued him. He was alive. He could have stayed alive. She intended, from all the facts of the case, to kill him." Patrica first told police in an affidavit that she was stopped by several black men who demanded drugs and had a knife, however investigators obtained video that showed Patrica driving her son to a canal, in addition there was a surveillance video of her at a Home Depot parking lot, where she waited for more than 15 minutes before lying to the prosecutors. She would be charged with first degree murder and first degree premeditated murder. On May 26th, a medical examiner confirmed that the manner of death was drowning and that it would be classified as drowning.