Neighbors fume as cheerleader accused of burying her baby in the backyard roams free
A cheerleader from Ohio, who is currently facing charges that include aggravated murder and involuntary manslaughter, has been seen out and about for the past month. Brooklyn "Skylar" Richardson was arrested after she was found to have buried her newborn daughter in the backyard in May 2017. Some residents in the area are outraged that she is free to go around after committing such a heinous crime.
Richardson was put under modified house arrest in April. The judge ruled that the cheerleader would have a curfew of 9 pm till 7 am. The ruling also stated that she would have to be under constant supervision with the use of GPS monitoring and random visits to her home.
One woman found the news of this absolutely shocking and she said she saw Richardson just two days after the new ruling. She wrote: "My husband and I saw the teenage girl from Carlisle who killed and buried her own baby. She was at the restaurant we were at, talking on her iPhone. How is someone who is awaiting trial for aggravated murder not in jail?!"
A few days after this, another woman saw Richardson at a McDonald's drive thru and took pictures of her. She was also seen playing outside her home with her dog.
A third woman is so obsessed with Richardson that she has spent almost a year just tracking the cheerleader's every move. This woman has also often criticized the actions of the family.
Richardson's defense team went after a ruling to ban the prosecutors from presenting the testimony of an obstetrics-gynecology practice's medical staff in court after citing the physician-patient privilege. Her release was modified shortly after that.
The prosecutors have argued that the client privilege did not apply in this particular case but they were denied using the testimony so the start of the trial was delayed because of the missing vital evidence.
As of now, there is no definite date for when the trial will begin again.
Officials found out about the baby first from a doctor whom Richardson had visited a few weeks before she gave birth to the baby girl.
Investigators discovered the remains of the infant soon after they received the news that a baby was indeed born and they believe that the cheerleader buried her baby just after giving birth.
Richardson delivered the baby girl, after going through a full pregnancy, in the bathroom of her home. This happened just days before her senior prom in May last year.
David Fornshell, the County Prosecutor, said that Richardson and her family were extremely worried about the rest of the community reacting to her pregnancy that happened out-of-wedlock.
He said during the early proceedings of the case: "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 high school, recent high school graduate; she was a cheerleader described (as) a good girl by her attorney as you heard after the arraignment. And I think that kind of perception is one that Skylar wanted to perpetuate and her mother wanted to perpetuate."
The sensational story about a cheerleader who is obsessed with the way she looks and who would kill, burn, and bury her infant child (as the authorities put it), immediately took off with the press. There is still no proof that she burned the baby girl and the defense still maintains that the baby was a stillborn.
There are two pages on Facebook that are dedicated to reporting everything about the case and many critics of the Richardson family have taken videos and posted them along with pictures of the family and their home. These more often than not come with scathing commentary.
Richardson's defense attorneys have slammed the prosecutors of the case for "a false narrative" that they used to sensationalize the case.
They claim that she did not kill the baby and that there is an expert witness has already concluded that there was no sign of the alleged burning or of any trauma that may have led to the baby's demise.
In a motion to move the trial, the prosecutors stated: "What started as an 18-year-old high school girl who was frightened and saddened because of giving birth to a stillborn baby, whom she named Annabelle, and then telling her doctor of the stillborn and burial in the backyard turned into something sinister and grotesque."
The request to change the venue was declined by Judge Donald Oda who said that he wanted to try and seat a jury for the case first.
The trial was called off after this.
In the meantime, the case has garnered a lot of attention because of a long and detailed piece by Cosmopolitan as well as the Facebook pages, which are being updated every day.