Cheerleader Brooke Skylar Richardson was ‘tempted’ to take a 15-year prison term plea deal for burying the baby girl she gave birth to in secret but decided at the last minute not to and instead fought her way through a trial which resulted in an acquittal, her parents have revealed.
Richardson, 20, was acquitted of murdering the baby – who she called Annabelle – after a highly publicized trial earlier this month. She was convicted of gross abuse of a corpse but was given time served and went home with her parents, Kim and Scott, a day after her conviction.
The trio will now be featured in a new episode of 48 Hours on CBS which will air on Saturday September 28.
Prosecutors accused her of murdering the baby – a claim she always denied.
She was charged with aggravated murder and manslaughter in addition to child endangerment and gross abuse of a corpse.
In their interview, her parents reveal that prosecutors were willing to drop the murder charge in exchange for her pleading guilty to the three others.
She was ‘tempted’ because, her mother said, she had been dealt ‘bad hands’ and was worried she would be convicted of murder.
‘The prosecutor told Charlie (Skylar’s lawyer) I will take aggravated murder off if you plea to the rest of them, which still could have been 15 years,’ Skylar’s father, Scott said.
‘She was tempted. She goes, “As soon as I heard him say aggravate’s off the table…’ Kim said.
Brooke Skylar Richardson is pictured at home with her dog recently. She was not interviewed about the trial and is now in a recovery program for people with eating disorders
Skylar Richardson is shown, left, at three months pregnant and again, right, at seven and a half months pregnant. Her parents shared the photos to illustrate how difficult it was to tell that the then 18-year-old was carrying a baby. She had struggled for anorexia for years and her family say they were merely happy she was putting on weight
Her father interjected: ‘Because that’s the scariest one. That could have been life without parole.’
Kim said her daughter felt like she had been dealt ‘so many bad hands’ that it was her ‘best option’.
‘Show me where it’s gone right so far?’ Kim recalled her daughter asking.
Ultimately, she changed her mind the morning they were due to give her lawyer their answer.
‘It was a Sunday morning and she woke up – and I can still see her sitting on the couch.
This is the grave of baby Annabelle. She was laid to rest on Thursday in a private ceremony in Ohio. Skylar’s parents were given her remains after the trial, despite protestations from the baby’s father’s family. They, per the judge’s orders, have access to it
‘And she goes, “I’m not going to plea to something I didn’t do.”
‘And in my heart I got sick – but it has to be her decision. End of day, she has to live with this,’ Kim said.
It comes as the first photos of the grave where the baby is now buried emerge following a private family service this week.
The judge released the baby’s remains to Skylar’s family despite the baby’s father’s protestations.
On Thursday, she was buried in a private ceremony in Ohio.
Photos taken afterwards show the grave site. It is marked by pink and white flowers and white teddy bears.
Skylar’s parents, in their interview, shared more photographs of her taken during her pregnancy to illustrate why they did not realize she was expecting.
Kim and Scott Richardson in their 48 Hours interview which will air on CBS on Saturday night
Skylar, now 20, was filmed for the special at the family’s home but she did not speak in the promotional video and it is unclear if she was interviewed
In one, she is shown lying in a beach chair in a bikini while nearly eight months pregnant.
Asked how much eating disorders rule their daughter’s life, Kim said: ’95 percent’.
Skylar’s mother Kim said that eating disorders had taken over her daughter’s life since she was 12 and that as she grew larger, she and her husband Scott were merely happy to see her putting on weight.
‘At 12-years-old she wouldn’t buy gym because it had five calories. I didn’t even know gum had calories,’ Kim fumed in a video teaser for their interview.
Skylar’s mother shared this new photo of her when she was eight months pregnant in April 2017 and said she could not tell she was carrying a baby
She also said that her daughter was ‘guarded’ and kept ‘secrets’ but that she would never have hurt anyone, much less her own daughter.
Skylar, 20, is now enrolled in an eating disorder recovery program and she is working as an assistant at a law firm.
She hopes to finally go to college in January.
In one of her interviews, Skylar’s mother Kim described the ordeal as her ‘worst nightmare’ and said the family had been living in ‘purgatory’.
‘I don’t know when it hit me but I was a grandmother and I never had any of the benefits of it.
‘Our lives had been completely turned upside down,’ said her mother Kim.
Skylar gave birth in May 2017 in the upstairs bathroom of her family’s home in Carlisle, Ohio. She said the baby was a stillborn.
At the time, she was 18 and had been suffering from eating disorders for years. The baby’s father was not her boyfriend but a different young man she’d had a fling with the previous summer.
Having told no one she was pregnant, she buried the lifeless baby in the family’s back yard and marked the spot with some flowers.
It was only when she went back to the same gynecologist who had told her she was pregnant to get birth control pills two months later that she confessed to what she’d done.
She was initially charged with murder, manslaughter, gross abuse of a corpse and child endangerment after a pathologist told police that she had burned the baby’s corpse.
The statement was based on the fact the bones looked darker in some areas. The pathologist recanted her statement but detectives had already coaxed Skylar into confessing to it.
In his interview, Skylar’s father Scott said they thought they were doing the right thing by having her cooperate.
‘We thought we were doing the right thing by cooperating. It turned out to be the absolute wrong thing.’
The family say they have been hounded for more than two years by the media storm the case created.
Kim, who prosecutors and defense attorneys said was ‘obsessed’ with her daughter’s weight, compared the scale of the publicity to the Super Bowl.
‘It felt like Super Bowl level. It was like the world stopped. Everyone wanted to know what was going on in our backyard and what had happened.
‘The sidewalk was lined with people sitting in lawn chairs. We have no privacy, we’re followed, stalked.
Skylar’s mother Kim, who did not testify at the trial, said her life was turned ‘upside down’
Skylar is pictured in her prom dress two days before she gave birth
The 20-year-old broke down in tears as she was acquitted of murder earlier this month
‘Facebook, to me, turned into “hate book,”‘ she said.
Scott said the family was ‘stalked’ and that they are still afraid to speak out.
‘I’m very scared. We’re scared to death talking to you. We don’t want things to come across wrong,’ he said.
The couple say that ultimately, Skylar’s mistake was that she buried the baby without telling anyone.
‘She had a stillborn and she made a poor choice after that, not telling anyone and burying the baby,’ her mother said.
Her father, who testified at the trial, said there was ‘no way’ she could ever have hurt the baby.
Prosecutors showed the jury this photograph of the infant’s skeletal remains after they were dug up from the family’s yard
As part of their defense, Skylar’s attorneys showed photos of how her weight fluctuated before she became pregnant (above) within the space of six months. She’d suffered from anorexia for years beforehand, her family says, and was under pressure from her mother to stay slim
‘There’s no way she would ever hurt anyone,’ he said.
Her mother added: ‘There’s no way. I would stake my life on it.’
She insisted she did not know about the pregnancy.
‘We missed everything,’ both she and Scott said.
When she learned that her daughter had been pregnant and buried the baby, Kim said she was in shock.
‘I couldn’t feel my body. I could not get up. How could that happen? I’ve seen her every day. I look at her. I talk to her. I hug her,’ she said.
Brooke Skylar Richardson is shown during her second police interview last July where she told police she set fire to her baby
Kim also shared a photograph of Skylar that was taken in April, weeks before she gave birth.
‘You cannot tell,’ she said of her figure.
Defense attorneys explained at her trial how no one in her family thought it was strange that she became larger during her pregnancy because they said her weight fluctuated so much anyway.
‘She looked healthy,’ her mother said of her growing belly. Her father chimed in: ‘We were actually pleased that she was finally gaining some weight.’
Skylar has never spoken publicly other than to apologize at her sentencing hearing.
She said she ‘knew she could be selfish’ but that she had changed.
48 Hours will air on CBS on Saturday night at 10pm.