Cheerleader accused of killing baby 'parties with friends' hours after avoiding jail time
Just hours after being acquitted of murdering her own baby, former cheerleader Brooke Skylar Richardson was reportedly seen partying with friends at a football game.
Following her trial in Lebanon, Ohio, Richardson was on Thursday (local time) convicted of gross abuse of a corpse but was given a three year probationary sentence.
The next day she appeared to be celebrating avoiding jail time, with another football spectator photographing the 20-year-old standing with a group of her friends, according to Daily Mail.
Police were also called to the game after a fight broke out between three men and a cameraman, who police were told was attempting to film the Richardson family from under the stand.
The cameraman, who reportedly claimed he worked for CBS News, was charged with three counts of misdemeanour criminal assault and one count of resisting arrest.
The other men were not charged, despite the cameraman requiring hospital treatment following the incident.
The remains of Richardson’s daughter, who she named “Annabelle”, were found in a shallow grave in her backyard in Ohio in 2017.
During her trial, the jury watched a video of her first police interrogation, which went for 90 minutes and showed her arguing that she didn’t kill her baby.
As she cried to officers, she insisted she “didn’t kill her” and kept the child secret because felt she “couldn’t tell anybody”.
Footage showed her crying inside the interrogation room while explaining how she gave birth in her family home’s bathroom, while on the toilet.
She said the child was not breathing when it was born, didn’t have a heartbeat and wasn’t making any noise. She was also unsure if it was born with an umbilical cord.
Richardson claimed the baby she gave birth to two days after her prom on May 7, 2017, was stillborn.
In spring 2017, Richardson was an 18-year-old Carlisle High School cheerleader when a doctor confirmed that she was pregnant. By that summer, she was accused of murder.
Prosecution witness Dr William Andrew testified that he informed her on April 26 she was pregnant.
“I can’t have a baby! I’m going to college,” Richardson said, according to Dr Andrew’s testimony.
Prosecutors said she soon began plotting “how to get rid of a baby”, even searching the internet for ideas.
That July 12, Richardson went back to the same medical practice office for a birth control prescription refill.
While she was there, Dr Casey Boyce noted that records showed Richardson had been pregnant during her last visit in April.
Dr Boyce has testified that Richardson burst into tears and said: “I had it [the baby] alone in my house and I buried it in my backyard”.
She recalled this exchange with Richardson, asking her if she was the first person she had told about the baby – to which Richardson replied “yes”.
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