11-Year-Old Boy Dead, Mom Charged With Murder After Vehicle Found in Ocean

Update 9:45 a.m.: Ruth White-DiRienzo has been charged with first and second degree murder in the death of her 11-year-old son, WCAU reports.

Original story:

An 11-year-old  Pennsylvania boy is dead and his mother in custody after the child’s father found him dead Tuesday morning.

Daniel Whitehead called 911 when he woke up around 7 a.m. and found the master bedroom door in his home locked and his wife’s vehicle missing, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Whitehead opened the door and found 11-year-old Matthew Whitehead, who had reportedly spent the night with his mother, dead.

Montgomery County and Horsham detectives were still at the Whitehead home with police in Cape May, New Jersey, found the wife’s black Toyota Highlander partially submerged in the ocean off Beach Drive in Cape May.

Cape May is about 120 miles from Horsham.

A short time later, police in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey — about six miles from Cape May — located Ruth Whitehead-DiRienzo. No charges have been filed, and the district attorney’s office said the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office will determine cause and manner of death in an autopsy.

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[Featured image: Matthew Whitehead/Facebook]