BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) — An 11-year-old autistic Brooklyn boy hasn’t been seen in almost a year, and six months after he was reported missing, his disappearance still baffles investigators trying to build a possible homicide case.
Jacob Pritchett was reported missing in October 2025, but the last confirmed sighting of the boy was in April of the same year by a property manager, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press briefing Friday.
The mom’s sister also reported seeing Jacob in early 2025. The boy is still missing, and the search for his body is ongoing.
“Where is he now?” Kenny said.
Authorities were called to the Howard Avenue home on Oct. 1 to conduct a wellness check at the request of the Administration of Children’s Services. The boy’s mother, Jacqueline Pritchett, 50, was acting evasive and claiming she didn’t have a son, police said.
“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. “A lot of neighbors said (on Oct. 1) that she does, in fact, have a son, but nobody has seen the child in the last six to eight weeks.”
Police got a search warrant for the apartment, and NYPD cadaver dogs got a possible blood hit in the refrigerator and on a mattress that was in the dumpster behind the building, police said.
Following that lead, cops searched 68 containers and millions of pounds of raw garbage at an upstate landfill but still didn’t find the child.
“The presence of blood in multiple locations in the apartment, you know, the cadaver dog hitting, it’s most likely going to be a homicide, but we’re still working through it,” the chief said.
Meanwhile, the mother has been in and out of Rikers Island on a Family Court order to produce the child while authorities tried to get more information from her about the boy’s disappearance.
The mom was invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself in the investigation before a judge dismissed the case, according to police and sources.
“So obviously, the case is still going on. We’re still talking to her,” Kenny said. “I guess, in a perfect world, the kid pops up somewhere. It’s going to be somebody finding something, you know, I hate to put it like that, a piece of the kid or something belonging to the kid, some DNA somewhere else than this location.”
The NYPD will work with Brooklyn prosecutors to build a possible homicide case, police said.
“In a perfect world, we find a kid somewhere upstate or with another family member, but I said, the presence of blood inside the apartment and a cadaver dog getting in the refrigerator is not usually a good sign,” Kenny said.
Mira Wassef is a digital reporter who has covered news and sports in the NYC area for more than a decade. She joined PIX11 News in 2022. See more of her work here.
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