Sickening Excuses And A Broken System Leave No Justice For An Innocent Baby

It’s no secret that our justice system is in need of repair, if not broken altogether.

It’s especially disturbing to see innocent people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit – or when the entitled and privileged seem to get away with murder.

And the latter appears to be the outcome of a recent case, especially because of the innocence of the victim.

In 2017, a high school cheerleader attended her senior prom.  Two days later, she gave birth to a baby girl in the bathroom of her home.

She had kept the pregnancy hidden from family, friends, and even the baby’s father, despite warnings from her physician to seek family support and prenatal care for the child when she went in for a consultation.

Dr. William Andrew repeatedly called Richardson in the following weeks to encourage her to come in for prenatal care and discuss birth plans.  She never returned his calls.

Brooke Skylar Richardson finally returned to see her doctor following the baby’s birth.  But what she had to say was earth-shattering.

She told him that she had given birth at home and buried her baby in the backyard.  

The authorities were alerted immediately and found the body of the innocent child, discarded like garbage in the dirt.

Richardson was arrested and charged with aggravated murder and child endangerment, along with several other felonies.

The trial started on September 3rd, full of contradictions and accusations by the defense about what really occurred.

Richardson insisted that the baby was stillborn, and that she had hastily buried the little girl because she was afraid to tell her parents.  

She claimed that police investigators and prosecutors had coerced her into saying that she had intentionally killed the child – but her behavior and comments during the interview leave little doubt of her guilt.

Richardson was a popular and beautiful high school cheerleader.  She seemed to have it all, and had made it clear that she was not ready to have a child.

In one of many chilling text messages to her mother after burying the child, she bragged, “I’m literally speechless with how happy I am. My belly is back omg I am never ever ever letting it get like this again,” according to MSN.

She even posted several pictures of herself at the gym, saying she was excited to “wear something cute” because she was getting her flat stomach back.

During the police interview, she told investigators that she didn’t return to the doctor because she was scared and didn’t know what to do.  

She told them she did not want to have her baby, but that she was too far along in her pregnancy to have an abortion.  She had even searched online for “how to get rid of a baby.”

She confessed to investigators and is said to have begged the forgiveness of her parents when they walked into the interview room.  They said her behavior during the interview overwhelmingly pointed to her guilt.

The baby’s father testified that he had no idea Richardson was pregnant, and his father wept at the loss of his first grandchild and its impact on his son.  Both men said they would have welcomed the child into their lives.

But then, as often happens, Richardson and her defense team decided to come up with every excuse in the book to explain away her actions.

They included saying the baby was stillborn and that Richardson tried to burn the body before burial because she was frightened of the consequences.

Then, she and her attorneys claimed that she had a mental health disorder stemming from alleged abuse she received as a pre-teen.  

In her testimony during the trial, Richardson contradicted everything she had said earlier, playing on her own supposed innocence, privilege, and popularity to brush off the horrible truth.

Typically when a jury deliberates for only a few hours, they are convinced of a suspect’s guilt.  But not this time.

In a shocking verdict, the jury found Richardson’s excuses to be credible – that she was simply a damaged young girl who made a terrible mistake, not a murderer.

She was found guilty of only one of the felony counts – gross abuse of a corpse – after she did confess to trying to burn her innocent child with a lighter and then tossing her in a pile of dirt in the yard.

At sentencing on September 20th, Judge Donald Oda II harshly criticized Richardson, saying, “I believe if you had made different decisions, Annabelle would still be here.  I think that your choices before birth, during birth and after birth show a grotesque disregard for life,” People reported.

Despite the judge’s apparent feelings and comments, Richardson received only three years’ probation and seven days in jail – time served.

Apparently, youth, beauty, and a sense of entitlement can go a long way toward escaping justice.

Richardson stated before sentencing that she could “sometimes be selfish” but is “getting better.”  That’s a hard comment to swallow when her selfishness led to the death of a full-term baby girl.

What do you think of the sickening outcome of Brooke Richardson’s trail for this heinous crime?  Leave us your comments.