In 2017, Brooke Skylar Richardson, who goes by her middle name, made national headlines after she buried her newborn baby in a shallow backyard grave. Richardson, who was 18 years old, hadn’t told anyone she was pregnant, and no one ever noticed. The next two years of her life became a circus. She was charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse. In 2019, she was found not guilty of most of the charges but guilty of gross abuse of a corpse. After serving nearly a year and a half of probation, the case was sealed. Now, she lives a relatively quiet life out of the spotlight.
There were reasons no one noticed her pregnancy.
According to a CBS News feature done on the Richardson family in 2019, Skylar struggled with both anorexia and bulimia starting in middle school. But things seemed to change in her senior year. She had started dating a boy named Brandon, and her parents believed her positive relationship made her start eating again.
“She looked healthy,” her mom Kim told the outlet. “For the first time in my life, I thought, she’s healthy, she’s in a healthy relationship, she really cares about Brandon.”
As their relationship got serious, Kim thought it was a good idea to take her daughter to the gynecologist for the first time to get a birth control prescription. Because she had just turned 18, the mom didn’t go inside.
The gynecologist, however, told Skylar he couldn’t give her birth control pills because she was 32 weeks pregnant, per CBS News. She reportedly left the appointment crying, but her mom attributed the tears to the experience being “traumatic” and didn’t ask questions.
Less than two weeks later, the teen went to her senior prom in a form-fitting dress, and no one knew she was pregnant.
She was too afraid to tell anyone the truth.
Not even two days after her prom, she started experiencing intense cramps, like “something needed to come out,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2019.
But no one knew she was pregnant. She had vowed to tell her mom after prom, but as she sat there with a lifeless, slippery premature baby, she could only think of one thing: bury her.
Exhausted, she carried herself outside and with her mom’s small garden trowel she dug a shallow grave in the backyard of their Ohio home. She named the baby girl Annabelle before burying her.
“I did not hurt, harm, or kill Annabelle,” she vowed. Richardson maintains that her baby was not born alive.
In July 2017, Richardson went back to the gynecologist. During the visit, she told the doctor what had happened through sobs. She never thought that she would get in trouble.
The court case was intense and long.
The prosecution mounted what it believed was a strong case, claiming that there was evidence of her burning the baby and that maybe Annabelle had been born alive, according to the CBS News report.
During the trial, prosecutors tried to paint Richardson as a cold-blooded killer, claiming she sent her mom a text that read “I’m literally so excited for dinner to wear something cute yayy my belly is back now I am takin this opportunity to make it amazing,” not even a day after giving birth, People reported.
According to USA Today, she reportedly texted her boyfriend, “Last night was like the worst ever. But I feel so much better this morning. I’m happy,” the day after her daughter’s death.
However, the defense maintained that there was never proper evidence that she killed her baby, and a forensic pathologist testified affirming that, People reported.
At her sentencing hearing, she spoke for the first time. “I would do anything that you ask,” she told the judge. “I can sometimes be selfish, but I’m getting better. I’m forever sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve hurt a lot of people. I am really, really sorry. And I understand.”
She’s tried to put the case behind her.
In November 2020, Richardson’s lawyers asked a judge to end her probation early, WCPO reported. It was granted, and she ended up serving 14 months of a three-year sentence.
Richardson told the court she was sorry for what had transpired. She said she had a lot of remorse and “suffers in silence.” However, she told the court she “wants to be a normal person again.”
“Richardson has been on probation for fourteen months and has been fully compliant,” her attorney, Charlie Rittgers, noted in a filing in Warren County Common Pleas Court. “Since the start of probation, she completed two semesters of college, has a cumulative GPA of over 3.8, and currently has a GPA 4.0 for her most recent semester.”
Richardson had also “been actively engaged in her recovery and continuing treatment for her mental health,” the filing read.
In October 2022, a judge ordered that “official records pertaining to the case shall be sealed, all index references hereto shall be deleted and the proceedings in this case shall be deemed not to have occurred,” at the request of Richardson and her legal team, WCPO reported.
