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The former Ohio high school cheerleader accused of killing her newborn and burying her in the backyard tearfully told police during her first interview that she “didn’t mean any harm” to her baby, according to a report.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, 20, allegedly killed her daughter a few days after her high school prom in May 2017 after secretly going into labor in the middle of the night without telling her parents, who have said she hid the pregnancy from them.
She was accused of burying the baby — whom she named Annabelle — in her family’s backyard in Carlisle.
On the second day of her trial on charges of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse, the jury watched a video of her first police interrogation, where she insisted she did not kill the infant.
Retired Lt .John Faine was seen asking Richardson her what made her think she might be pregnant, according to news.com.au.
“I was really big. I was pretty big,” she replied, adding that she didn’t sleep the night of May 7 due to sharp cramps and pains in her lower back.
In the video, Richardson was seen crying as she recalled giving birth in her bathroom, claiming the baby fell out while she was on the toilet and wasn’t breathing when she was born.
“I didn’t kill her though,” she said with tears streaming down her face, adding that she had to bury the newborn because she “couldn’t tell anybody.”
“Is that really bad … I didn’t mean any harm to her. Are you going to put me in jail because of that?” Richardson asked.
She said she wanted to bury her baby in the backyard because she wanted to put flowers on her and that she cleaned up the blood with a towel that she threw away a few days later.
At one point, Faine asked Richardson if she had ever “considered giving herself an abortion.”
“No. I just kinda thought maybe looking up ways to maybe see if I could not have it, but I never followed through with anything,” she answered, though she did admit to Googling “how to not have a baby” or “how to get rid of a baby.”
Richardson’s parents, Kim and Scott Richardson, later were seen entering the interrogation room. Her dad told her she should have told them she was pregnant.
“You did a horrible thing … you got pregnant, you had a baby in our house, and you didn’t tell us,” he said.
Kim Richardson told her that people get pregnant every day and that it’s “not the end of the world.”
In the footage, the girl tells her parents that doctors had prescribed her birth control during an April 26 appointment, though it was unclear if that was true.
Trey Johnson, 21, who is believed to be the child’s father, told the court he had a brief sexual relationship with Richardson but insisted he never knew she had become pregnant. He said she had blocked him on social media and never contacted him again.
Earlier in the week, it was revealed that Richardson texted her mom just hours after the birth, saying she was “speechless” with how “happy” she was that her “belly is back.”
Steve Knippen, an assistant Warren County prosecutor, told jurors that Richardson tried to commit “the perfect crime” by killing an unwanted baby and then trying to go back to her “perfect life.”
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