A Westchester woman who killed her 4-year-old son in 2012 was found dead Wednesday, March 4, in her cell at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said.
A spokeswoman said Thursday that Manuela Morgado was found around 2 am and the death remains under investigation. She referred a reporter to the Westchester County Medical Examiner’s Office for further information. A county spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for details on the cause of death.
Morgado was locked in a custody battle with her ex-fiancé when she smothered her son Jason “Jake” Reish with a pillow in her Mamaroneck home on Oct. 1, 2012. She had begun to give him Benadryl and was going to add helium but abandoned that when he began to struggle. Morgado left a suicide note and had tried to kill herself with an overdose of Xanax.
A Family Court judge had recently denied her bid to move Jake out of the school he was in.
When village detectives interviewed her, they said she told them “Now, no one will take him from me”. She also reportedly told police that the killing was supposed to be “quick and peaceful so we could be happy together forever.”
‘Immeasurable and without end’
Morgado was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison in 2014 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
At the sentencing, Jake’s father Dr. Timothy Reish called her a “sick, twisted narcissistic monster” and said the pain she had caused was “immeasurable and without end.”
In a letter to the judge read at her sentencing, Morgado said she had attempted suicide other times since killing her son.
“I have lived in a constant state of remorse,” she wrote. “I miss my son every minute of every day… I am riddled with shame and regret for making this decision.”
Morgado’s death was posted on DOCCS’ website and first reported by News 12.
(This story may update.)
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Manuela Morgado, convicted of killing her son in 2012, dies in prison
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler and Alexandra Rivera, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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