In April 2023, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office announced that Matthew Whitehead, a 6th-grader at Germantown Academy, was allegedly murdered by his mother, 50-year-old Ruth DiRienzo-Whitehead.

On Friday, February 16, Dirienzo-Whitehead was sentenced to life in prison.

Dirienzo-Whitehead told the court only a “monster would do something like this” and that she knows the life her son should have had and that she was proud of him. She repeatedly apologized and begged her family for forgiveness.

She never said why she strangled her son during court proceedings, according to NBC10. But after being taken into custody in April, she confessed and told police she did not want her son to grow up with the family’s financial problems so she strangled him with her husband’s belt as he slept, 6ABC reported.

In hearings this week, Dirienzo-Whitehead’s defense argued that she was having “a psychotic break and felt she was sparing her son a painful life,” NBC10 wrote.

A defense expert testified that she suffered from depression and mental illness, and prosecutors argued that the killing was premeditated, as she had performed numerous Google searches on how to strangle someone and “she had done research on mental illnesses that lead moms to kill their own kids.”

The judge refused to find mental illness as a defense, and prosecutors successfully argued that she knew killing her son was wrong and that she was acting out of revenge and not mental illness.

The defense says it will appeal for a shorter sentence.

For NBC10’s video coverage, you can watch below:

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Screengrab: NBC10