The emotionally disturbed Brooklyn woman who claims she’s not the mother of a missing 11-year-old autistic boy has his name tattooed on her arm, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Friday.
The revelation adds another layer to the suspicion that Jacqueline Pritchett, 50, is indeed the mother of Jacob Pritchett, 11, a non-verbal boy last seen by neighbors late last summer — and was likely killed, Kenny said.
An NYPD cadaver dog detected blood in the refrigerator inside the family’s Brownsville apartment on Howard Ave. and on a mattress near a dumpster outside the building, Kenny said. But police have not recovered the youngster’s body.
“She tells us that she is barren — she does not have a child named Jacob, although she has a Jacob tattoo on her arm,” Kenny said. “We know the kid exists. She’s denying it, and it’s just a matter of now finding him.”
“The presence of blood in multiple locations in the apartment, the cadaver dog hitting, it’s most likely going to be a homicide, but we’re still working through it,” the chief said.
Police learned of Jacob, who appears to have been home-schooled, when officers last Oct. 1 searched the family’s apartment with an investigator from the Administration for Children’s Services after an anonymous tip about the boy’s well-being was called into a state hotline.
Aside from the blood trace in the refrigerator, the apartment appeared to have been scrubbed clean, according to court transcripts. Toys were found in the bathroom and in closets.
Jacqueline Pritchett claimed the toys were hers and that she was a single woman, though at first she said she was a single mother, according to the transcripts.
But police were suspicious from the start and, with the help of state police, searched at two upstate landfills, combing through 68 containers holding 2,920,360 pounds of trash.
Nothing was found, Kenny said.
Anyone with information regarding Jacob’s whereabouts is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
