'Grotesque disregard for life': Former cheerleader sentenced for abuse of corpse
The cheerleader who was accused of killing and burying her newborn baby has been acquitted and sentenced to three years’ probation on a corpse abuse charge on Friday.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, 20, apologised before a Warren County judge told her she showed a “grotesque disregard for life”.
Richardson buried her newborn daughter in her family’s backyard in 2017. Her defence said the baby she called “Annabelle” was stillborn.
“Life is precious, and it should be protected,” Judge Donald E. Oda II said.
“I know in my heart that if you would have made different decisions in this case, Annabelle would be here today.”
If Richardson violates her probation she can go to prison for up to a year, as Judge Oda warned her.
Richardson admitted she can “sometimes be selfish” and she is aware she hurt “so many” people.
“I just wanted to say how sorry I was,” Richardson told the judge before he sentenced her.
“I’m forever sorry, I’m so sorry; I’m really, really sorry.”
Richardson broke down in tears when she was acquitted of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment charges on Thursday.
The baby’s paternal grandmother, Tracy Johnson, told the court about the pain of losing a baby she and her son Trey, the father, didn’t even know about until long after her death.
Prosecutors argued that she hid her unwanted pregnancy and killed the baby before burying it in her family’s backyard so that the high school cheerleader could get on with her “perfect life”.
Medical experts who testified for both the defence and the prosecution agree there was no physical evidence the baby was alive.
A live birth had to be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” if the jury was to convict on any of the three most serious charges: aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangering.
The remains of Richardson’s newborn, Annabelle, were found in July 2017, in Carlisle, about 64km north of Cincinnati.
The former high school cheerleader continually denied murdering her daughter and maintained the baby was stillborn.
With AP
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