Trial begins for Horsham woman accused of using belt to fatally strangle her son

NORRISTOWN — With heart-wrenching testimony at the trial of his wife who is accused of using a belt to strangle their 11-year-old son, a Horsham Township man sobbed as he recalled finding the child dead in the master bedroom of the family’s home.

“I saw him laying on the bed face down. I screamed,” Daniel Whitehead testified through tears in Montgomery County Court on Monday at the trial of Ruth DiRienzo-Whitehead who faces charges of first- and third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime in connection with the alleged April 11, 2023, strangulation death of the couple’s son, Matthew.

“He was a great boy. He was always happy,” Daniel Whitehead recalled his son who was a 6th-grade student at Germantown Academy.

During his testimony, Daniel Whitehead repeatedly referred to his wife of 13 years as “the defendant.” At one point, he glared at her as he was asked to identify her for the record in the courtroom.

DiRienzo-Whitehead, 51, cupped her face in her hands and appeared to wipe tears from her eyes at times as her husband and investigators described Matthew’s death.

Daniel Whitehead testified that his wife spent the night in the master bedroom with Matthew while he slept in Matthew’s room, which he described as not unusual. He recalled that when he awakened on April 11 he noticed that the door to the master bedroom was locked and that his wife’s 2019 Toyota Highlander vehicle was missing from the garage.

Daniel Whitehead said he used a screwdriver to open the door and force his way into the master bedroom, discovered his deceased son and called 911.

Horsham Police Officer Anna Kumor testified she responded to the home in the 500 block of Privet Road about 7 a.m. for a report of an unconscious child after the boy’s father called 911 and reported his wife had killed their son.

“He was obviously deceased. There was no pulse. He was cold to the touch,” Kumor testified.

Victoria Sorokin, a medical examiner, testified an autopsy determined that the cause of the boy’s death was ligature strangulation and the manner of death was ruled homicide.

“There was a ligature mark on the front and on the sides of the neck,” Sorokin testified, explaining the injuries were consistent with strangulation being inflicted with a belt from behind.

DiRienzo-Whitehead opted for a non-jury trial before Judge William R. Carpenter, who will decide her fate.

Prosecutors Lauren Marvel and Gwendolyn Kull suggested Matthew’s death was premeditated and that DiRienzo-Whitehead knew what she did was wrong.

DiRienzo-Whitehead would face life imprisonment if she’s convicted of first-degree murder, which is an intentional killing, at trial.

A conviction of third-degree murder, a killing committed with malice, carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.

But defense lawyer Eugene Tinari argued DiRienzo-Whitehead was severely mentally ill and was suffering from depression as a result of several stressors. Specifically, Tinari argued DiRienzo-Whitehead had been the sole caretaker for her mother who suffered from dementia, was stressed about financial pressures and had to recently sell her family home in Wildwood Crest, N.J., and was facing menopause.

Daniel Whitehead testified his wife was “upset” and “wasn’t happy” about having to sell the Wildwood home that had been in her family for decades.

“You will not hear that she didn’t love Matthew. You will hear that he was the apple of her eye,” argued Tinari, who is waging an insanity or mental infirmity defense on behalf of DiRienzo-Whitehead.

What is in dispute during the trial is DiRienzo-Whitehead’s mental state at the time of the killing.  The trial is expected to include dueling testimony from defense and prosecution psychiatric experts who evaluated DiRienzo-Whitehead.

Under state law, a person who is diagnosed as insane suffers from a mental defect that prevents them from knowing right from wrong or from realizing the nature and quality of their actions.

A person who is determined to be not guilty by reason of insanity at trial initially would be committed to a mental health facility for treatment and receive periodic evaluations. Once that person is deemed “cured” of mental illness they would be released from supervision with no requirement to serve any jail time.

Under state law, a person found guilty but mentally ill at a trial lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or to conform their conduct to the law as a result of a mental disease. Such a conviction recognizes the incident was a product of criminality but also serious mental illness.

A person found guilty but mentally ill is sentenced to prison but is evaluated to determine if they suffer from mental illness and if so the offender receives treatment. When that person is deemed to have the mental illness under control, the offender must serve the balance of any sentence in prison in the general population.

DiRienzo-Whitehead told detectives she fatally strangled her son with a belt as he slept because she didn’t want him to grow up having to struggle with the family’s financial difficulties, according to testimony.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I should have stopped myself,” DiRienzo-Whitehead said in her statement, a video recording of which was played in court for the judge.

At one point, as prosecutors played the recording, DiRienzo-Whitehead had an emotional outburst and the judge allowed sheriff’s deputies to escort her from the courtroom to compose herself.

When detectives interviewed DiRienzo-Whitehead, she told them that she and Matthew went to bed at about 9:30 p.m. on April 10 and she “described that Matthew had been upset and crying off and on all day over the family’s financial difficulties,” according to the criminal complaint filed by Montgomery County Detective Heather Long and Horsham Township Detective Michael Peter.

“DiRienzo-Whitehead explained that she did not want Matthew to grow up with these struggles so she strangled him with her husband’s belt as he slept,” Long and Peter wrote in the arrest affidavit.

After killing the boy, DiRienzo-Whitehead drove the family vehicle to Cape May County, N.J., where she drove the vehicle onto Cove Beach and into the ocean, according to testimony. Once the vehicle was no longer operable, DiRienzo-Whitehead walked to Wildwood Crest where she was located by police and taken into custody.

Prosecutors showed the judge police body cam footage of DiRienzo-Whitehead’s apprehension during which she uttered, “I know what I did.”

Detectives subsequently searched the Toyota Highlander after it was retrieved from the ocean.

“On the front driver’s side floor of the vehicle, they recovered a black men’s dress belt,” Long and Peter wrote in the criminal complaint.