Pal: Desperation Led Mom to Kill Autistic Son

A wealthy Manhattan mom found babbling incoherently next to the lifeless body of her 8-year-old autistic son last week gave the boy a fatal overdose because she was overwhelmed by his condition, said a family friend. Pharmaceutical executive Gigi Jordan, 49, "went to clinics all over the country looking for a treatment, grasping at straws" to find effective treatment for her "severely autistic" son, Dr. Marcus Conant told the New York Daily News.

"She developed medical problems in the last few months," Conant said. "The thought must have gone through her head that 'the only way I can save him is if we both die.'" Jordan is being held in a Queens mental health facility. No one has yet claimed her son's body. "It's killing me just to know that he's alone in the morgue,"' said the boy's biological father, who plans to fly from his California home to collect the body. (More Manhattan stories.)