A wealthy pharmaceutical company executive living in New York City, Gigi Jordan, 62, was found dead. She was convicted over 10 years ago for murdering her eight-year-old autistic son in the Peninsula Hotel in NYC in 2010, and spent time in prison until her release in 2020.
Jordan was found dead on Friday, December 30 in her NYC apartment. On January 4, the medical examiner’s office confirmed that the woman committed suicide by placing a plastic bag filled with nitrogen gas over her head. The act happened just a few hours after US Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor gave an order that would have sent Jordan back to prison.
In February 2010, Jordan was convicted for the murder of her son, Jude Mirra, with sleeping pills, tranquilizers, painkillers and alcohol. After she poisoned her son, she tried to commit suicide, but failed.
According to the prosecutors, after she forced her son to take the pills, she withdrew $125,000 from his trust fund.
A 2014 jury acquitted Jordan on the first-degree murder charge but found her guilty of manslaughter. In 2015, she was sentenced to 18 years in prison and was incarcerated, but her manslaughter conviction was overturned in 2020 due to an alleged procedural error during the trial.
In 2020, a US magistrate judge overturned her conviction, saying that she didn’t get a fair trial.
Jordan was released from prison in December 2020. She was ordered confined to her home on $250,000 bond for the duration of her case appeal with electronic monitoring. She was also ordered to stay in New York City, avoid committing any other crimes, and to not be in possession of any illegal firearms or drugs.
On Thursday, December 29, Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor issued an order reversing the order that had allowed Jordan to stay confined to her home, which meant that she would have to go back to prison.
Jordan’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, said he spoke to her on the phone a few hours before her suicide, and she seemed to be in good spirits.
The next call Attorney Siegel received about his client was on Friday morning when he was told that she was dead.