Killed my boy, but that does not mean I’m crazy
Mercy.
This is going to be a murder trial with a twist.
I got a preview last week when Gigi Jordan, 51, self-made pharmaceutical millionaire charged with murdering her 8-year-old son, walked into a windowless Rikers Island visiting room in a baggy Department of Correction jumpsuit, no makeup, and greeted Stephen Murphy, her lead defense lawyer on a dream team that also includes Alan Dershowitz and Ron Kuby.
In an emotional interview, she claimed that the alleged mobbed-up business scams of her first husband, Ray Mirra, and the alleged sexual abuse of her special-needs son, Jude, by his biological father, second husband Emil Tzekov, drove her to the “mercy killing” of her son and a failed bid to take her own life on Feb. 4, 2010, in a $2,300-anight suite at the Peninsula Hotel.
It’s the stuff that true crime books and Lifetime movies are made of.
“The Manhattan DA calls me a child murderer,” Jordan says, offering a glimpse into her unique defense strategy. “But I tried to kill myself along with my son to save him from a life of sexual torture. I took Jude to the best doctors and hospitals available. I spent my life loving and caring for Jude.”
Jordan says she had no motive for “murdering” her son, who died of a drug overdose.
“First, the DA said I killed Jude so I could live as a socialite,” she says. “If I wanted that, I could have paid to institutionalize him. I didn’t because I loved Jude. Then the DA said I was crazy. I was not and am not insane. I did what I did because I was going to be killed or institutionalized and I would rather die along with my son than let him live without me to protect him from a life of horror at the hands of his monstrous father.” Is this going to be the defense? “Yes, it is,” says Murphy. Will Gigi Jordan take the stand? “Yes, I will,” she says. “I can’t wait to tell my story. Especially if there are mothers on the jury. All of the mothers I’ve met here in Rikers, who ache for their kids, come to believe me when they hear my story.”
Jordan, a registered nurse, married Mirra on Dec. 14, 1998, after they had partnered in several hugely successful medical companies. She claims she didn’t Denis Hamill