Gigi Jordan, 62, was a wealthy pharmaceutical company executive living in New York City. She was convicted more than 10 years ago of 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 right after midnight on Friday, December 30 in her NYC apartment. On Wednesday, January 4, the medical examiner’s office confirmed that the woman placed a plastic bag filled with nitrogen gas over her head.
Jordan committed suicide a few hours after US Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor gave an order that would have sent her back to prison.
Jordan was convicted in February 2010 for the murder of her son, Jude Mirra with a concoction of sleeping pills, tranquilizers, painkillers and alcohol that she forced him to drink. After she poisoned her son, she tried to commit suicide, but failed.
However, 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 then ordered to remain confined to her home on $250,000 bond for the duration of the appeal of her case 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.
However, 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.
According to Jordan’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, he spoke to her on the phone a few hours before she was found dead, but she seemed to be in good spirits.
The next news Siegel received about his client was on Friday morning when he was told that she was dead.