In October 2025, Mindy Sigg — the mother who turned her own son in for the murder of ten-year-old Jessica Ridgeway — spoke publicly for the first time since the 2012 case I covered in True Crime Case Histories — Volume 4. Austin Sigg has been serving a life sentence in an undisclosed out-of-state prison since 2014.

In a lengthy CNN interview, Mindy described the moment her seventeen-year-old walked into her bedroom in late October 2012 and told her he had something to say. Before he could finish, she somehow already knew. “Is this about Jessica?” she asked. He confirmed it and called himself a monster.

The thirteen years since have not been kind to her. She described panic attacks, suicidal ideation, and a yearslong unraveling after fleeing the home she had shared with her son. She fell apart one afternoon in the DVD section at Target, convinced everyone around her recognized her. A harassing voicemail playing back her own 911 call once landed in her inbox. She credited ketamine therapy with finally helping her where conventional treatment had failed.

Mindy and Austin have not spoken in years. The break came when the FBI asked him to participate in criminal profiling research and he refused — a choice that angered his mother and convinced her she would never get a truthful answer from him about anything.

Perhaps the most striking part of the piece is the response from Jessica’s family. Sarah Ridgeway, Jessica’s mother, told CNN she has never blamed Mindy, and that by turning Austin in rather than shielding him, Mindy likely saved other children he might have gone on to harm.

Mindy has never spoken with the Ridgeways but says she would if given the chance. Her message to them: she would trade her own life for Jessica’s if she could.

It is a small mercy in a case that, as anyone who has read the full details knows, contains very few of them.