Mom of missing Brooklyn autistic boy still won’t talk, gets agitated in court
Dec 19, 2025
The Brooklyn woman who has continued to deny she is the mother of a missing 11-year-old autistic boy showed up in Family Court Friday and again shed no light on the the child’s whereabouts.
Jacqueline Pritchett, 50, through her lawyer, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions —
but grew agitated when Judge Dawn Orsatti told her she needed to bring her son to authorities and appear at her next court date on Dec. 30 or risk arrest.
“I’m not showing up, I’m telling you right now,” Pritchett said, though she appeared to be directing her remarks at her lawyer, Daniela Mancini. “I don’t have money. I don’t have a place to live.”
Mancini, over the course of several minutes, tried to calm Pritchett down and get her to stop talking, but the woman pushed back.
“No, no. Stop, Daniela — please,” she said. “I can’t show up.”
After calming down, Pritchett was told by Orsatti that she has the option of appearing virtually and that, if she chooses to appear in person, she will be provided a round-trip MetroCard by the Administration for Children’s Services.
Outside the courthouse, Mancini and other colleagues from Brooklyn Defender Services escorted Pritchett into a livery cab.
Neither Pritchett, now living in a shelter, nor Mancini would answer reporters’ questions.
The judge has declared that Jabob Pritchett is indeed Jacqueline Pritchett’s son.
The NYPD in October declared Jacob missing. A police source on Friday said the last time any relative saw Jacob was in January, when one of them waved to the little boy from outside his building
The NYPD has released to the media a sketch and computer rendering of the child, as well as a mugshot of his mom. Detectives believe he has been the victim of a crime, police sources said, though there was no sign of Jacob when police searched an upstate landfill where trash from dumpsters outside Pritchett’s building is normally taken.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News; NYPDPolice released a computer-generated image of Jacob Pritchett (inset), who was reported missing from Jacqueline Pritchett's residence at 614 Howard Ave. in Brooklyn on Oct. 3. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News; NYPD)
The mystery started when ACS on Sept. 25 went to the Pritchett apartment after a tipster said the boy might have been harmed. The mother refused to let ACS in. But after police were called, she opened the apartment door to them and ACS and denied having a kid, sources said.
ACS obtained Jacob’s birth certificate and returned on Oct. 1, again joined by police.
There was no sign of Jacob inside.
There were two mattresses there, however, according to court documents, and children’s toys were found in various closets.
Pritchett, according to the documents, claimed the toys were hers and that she was a virgin who never had any children. Though, at one point, she said she was a single mother, she quickly reversed course and said she was a single resident.
She also claimed to be Jesus Christ.
Pritchett has mental health issues, police sources said.
After undergoing a psychiatric observation at Brookdale Hospital, Pritchett was cited for contempt and jailed Oct. 10 on Rikers Island, where she remained until her release on Dec. 9, after her lawyers argued she was being punished for exercising her rights by not answering questions that might incriminate her.
...read more
read less