A former Ohio cheerleader accused of killing her newborn daughter before burning her and burying her in her parents’ backyard has asked a court for three separate trials to deal with her five charges.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, now 20, was charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse in July 2017.
Richardson, known as Skylar, was just 18 years old when she tearfully admitted to a doctor that her baby had been stillborn and she had buried it at her parents’ home in the village of Carlisle, which is north of Cincinnati.
It was just a month before she was due to start college and days after her senior prom in May 2017.
She has maintained the baby was delivered stillborn. Skylar’s prom photo, taken two days before she gave birth shows a visible bump but her parents claim they were never aware their daughter was pregnant.
Now her attorneys Rittgers & Rittgers argue that her right to a fair trial is prejudiced unless she has separate trials to avoid an ‘impermissible joinder of offenses’, Fox 19 reports.
Brooke Skylar Richardson is accused killing and burying her newborn daughter in Ohio
Her attorneys argue that her right to a fair trial is prejudiced unless she has separate trials to deal with her five charges to avoid an ‘impermissible joinder of offenses’. Pictured in 2017
Richardson, known as Skylar, was just 18-years-old when she tearfully admitted to a doctor that her baby had been stillborn and she had buried it at her parents’ home in the village of Carlisle
Lawyers have asked the court that the charge of aggravated murder being trialed separately in a motion filed Wednesday.
Richardson would then face involuntary manslaughter and endangering children charges in a separate trial under their plans.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, now 20, was charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence, and gross abuse of a corpse in July 2017
And she should be tried for tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse in a third trial, her legal team argue.
They say she is at risk of the jury using the evidence ‘cumulatively’ when several crimes are tried together, with her trial due to start on September 3.
County Prosecutor David Fornshell has said: ‘Skylar and her family, particularly her mother, were pretty obsessed with external appearances and how things appeared to the outside world.
‘You have a situation where, you know, she’s a cute recent high school graduate. She was a cheerleader, described a good girl by her attorney.
‘And I think that kind of perception is one that Skylar wanted to perpetuate and her mother wanted to perpetuate.’
It was also Fornshell who would claim that Skylar not only buried her dead baby, but burned the newborn girl’s body as well.
A forensic expert who claimed Annabelle had been burned has since retracted their claim. A second expert likewise confirmed there were no signs the baby was burned.
Skylar’s prom photo, taken two days before she gave birth shows a visible bump
‘Skylar and her family, particularly her mother, were pretty obsessed with external appearances and how things appeared to the outside world,’ a prosecutor claimed. She sits with her family in 2017
Skylar’s defense attorneys have blasted prosecutors for ‘a false narrative’ that sensationalized the case.
They say the teen didn’t kill her baby, and that an expert witness concluded there was no sign of burning or of trauma that would have caused the baby’s death.
Authorities first learned of the baby from a doctor that Skylar had first visited a few weeks before she gave birth.
When she visited him again, Skylar said that the baby had been stillborn and she had buried it. The coroner’s office contacted police.
After police arrived at her home, Skylar told them that she had given birth to a baby girl – who she named Annabelle – around 3am on May 7, 2017.
She said her daughter never opened her eyes and Skylar cradled her for hours, hoping she would show any sign of life.
When none came, the teen buried her in a spot in the yard that she would be able to see from her bedroom window, digging the hole with a small garden spade.
She then took pink rose petals, which she had worn at prom and sprinkled them over her daughter’s grave.