OH - Annabelle Richardson, newborn, found in shallow grave, Carlisle, 7 May 2017 #1

[beatrixpotter]

The baby has unexplained skull fractures.

The prosecution showed the skull in pieces mixed in with all the other remains.

Skylar supposedly told the police that her baby was born alive for 5 minutes, it moved, she heard it cry and that she might have killed it by squeezing too hard.

Ok, where did that info come from? Is that from the police records discussed in court or just rumors? Because if she said the above that would certainly change how I feel. But I also thought she burnt the baby at first and that turns out it was not true either.

 

[stmarysmead]

I’m curious about the prom dress. That style of dress does not provide much “forgiveness” for an expanding “belly.” When did she buy it? Was her Mother with her? Did she have it altered? In the pictures, look at how her “weight” is distributed....she still has a waist but the protruding belly of a pregnancy not a weight gain. No me in her family ever noticed this?

I find her behavior toward her parents very manipulative. Her Father seems to be looking for a way to blame the Dr for giving her birth control pills. Maybe that’s a family dynamic...if she uses a baby voice and loves them up, they find someone else to shoulder her blame.

I’m still trying to understand how her Mother could have been fooled by the “belly that disappeared overnight.”

 

[fred&edna]

Just wanna say... I find it very interesting to watch court cases like this and then see the different opinions and/or reactions posted here.

 

[Tillicum]

I’m curious about the prom dress. That style of dress does not provide much “forgiveness” for an expanding “belly.” When did she buy it? Was her Mother with her? Did she have it altered? In the pictures, look at how her “weight” is distributed....she still has a waist but the protruding belly of a pregnancy not a weight gain. No me in her family ever noticed this?

I find her behavior toward her parents very manipulative. Her Father seems to be looking for a way to blame the Dr for giving her birth control pills. Maybe that’s a family dynamic...if she uses a baby voice and loves them up, they find someone else to shoulder her blame.

I’m still trying to understand how her Mother could have been fooled by the “belly that disappeared overnight.”

It sorta looked to me like the father suspected she took the BCP in hopes they would end the pregnancy. I didn't know until today that BCP wouldn't harm the baby or pregnancy, so in his position I would've been suspicious. I still can't think of any reason she took them while pregnant. She didn't take prenatal vitamins but took BCP every day?

 

[MTW2011]

I saw multiple people (albeit on a FB group) making a big deal about the photo she took the next day, her in the mirror. What I dont see is people mentioning the photo being taken at the YMCA where she worked, or mentioning her 8+ plus years of severe eating disorders and weight fluctuating and how her ED caused her to obsess over every pound, every minute change in her body, in this case her stomach. YES - it appears cold and cruel when we see her say shes happy about having her flat stomach back, but I think theres more context. People who suffer from eating disorders obsess with how they look, and people who have parents who are always nagging about their image and how they appear to society even moreso. I think that text was Skylar taking a selfie, happier with how she looked, but all because her warped perspective and distorted self image made her so in tune with every tiny change of her body. There’s been many studies showing the link between self image and eating disorders and in today’s world, those who suffer with an ED may take lots of photos of themselves keeping track of every small change in their body. I don’t think the text was good, but I also don’t see a girl who was bragging about her belly and happy she got rid of her baby. Just my thoughts though.

 

[MTW2011]

Does anyone else have any court documents to share? I know the email from the anthropologist was shared here. I’d love to see more but couldn’t find much using their online records search.

 

[stmarysmead]

If the baby does truly have skull fractures, then her testimony that she caught the baby...and that the baby never hit the floor...will be damning.

 

[stmarysmead]

I saw multiple people (albeit on a FB group) making a big deal about the photo she took the next day, her in the mirror. What I dont see is people mentioning the photo being taken at the YMCA where she worked, or mentioning her 8+ plus years of severe eating disorders and weight fluctuating and how her ED caused her to obsess over every pound, every minute change in her body, in this case her stomach. YES - it appears cold and cruel when we see her say shes happy about having her flat stomach back, but I think theres more context. People who suffer from eating disorders obsess with how they look, and people who have parents who are always nagging about their image and how they appear to society even moreso. I think that text was Skylar taking a selfie, happier with how she looked, but all because her warped perspective and distorted self image made her so in tune with every tiny change of her body. There’s been many studies showing the link between self image and eating disorders and in today’s world, those who suffer with an ED may take lots of photos of themselves keeping track of every small change in their body. I don’t think the text was good, but I also don’t see a girl who was bragging about her belly and happy she got rid of her baby. Just my thoughts though.

The part that is so weird to me is that she had succeeded in hiding her pregnancy from her parents. Even after her Mother god that email from the DR (by mistake)...she chose to believe Skylar not the email.

So why call attention to this dramatic change in your belly to your Mother? No one loses a big belly from weight overnight, even eating disorders can’t account for that.

And supposedly, Mom STILL had no clue?!

Very odd.

 

[Ksprincess2]

Her parents would have never let her give it up. IMO.

I disagree. I feel like image is so important that they would have wanted to her to go live with a relative out of state or something, give the baby up for adoption, come back and pretend nothing ever happened.

 

[Jewels53]

We have no idea what Skylars parents would have wanted her to do about the baby. That is if they found out before the baby was born. I would imagine if Skylar had woken them up that night they would have taken her to the hospital. jmo

 

[osu]

Ok, where did that info come from? Is that from the police records discussed in court or just rumors? Because if she said the above that would certainly change how I feel. But I also thought she burnt the baby at first and that turns out it was not true either.

August 1, 2019

~snip

“Email exchanges between Murray and Allen were released with the motion to dismiss.

In one of those exchanges Murray told Allen “I could not say at that second visit with a reasonable degree of certainty that those bones had, in fact, been burned.”

Allen replied by saying she didn’t realize it was a “crucial part of their [prosecutor’s office] game plan.”

Murray then said “whether the bones was burned or not, that baby was still dead, had unexplained skull fractures, and was buried the back yard. I don’t understand why the burning takes it up such a notch."

(Docs at link)

Skylar Richardson’s attorneys want indictment dismissed due to recanted statement on charred bones

 

[squareandrabbet]

The part that is so weird to me is that she had succeeded in hiding her pregnancy from her parents. Even after her Mother god that email from the DR (by mistake)...she chose to believe Skylar not the email.

So why call attention to this dramatic change in your belly to your Mother? No one loses a big belly from weight overnight, even eating disorders can’t account for that.

Yeah, I'm with you. I don't care what Skylar thought "getting her belly back", meant to her and in her mind; I'm shocked she would go so far as to rejoice in it to her mother, after she had probably just talked her mother out of thinking her pregnant. Did she think "Oh hey, if I attribute this to weight loss so will my mom?" If so, why? It certainly isn't the action of someone thinking clearly and sensibly. It's got about the same level of sophistication and common sense that a child is employing, when they're still at the stage of "hide and seek" where they think "if I cover my eyes so I can't see my parents, then this means my parents can't see me". If I were in that situation and lost a lot of "weight" which was really "baby bump", I'd keep schtum and let my mother notice it on her own, hoping that it takes her months to catch on.

 

[osu]

Police Interrogation Video
54:51 minutes

https://www.courttv.com/title/9-5-19-skylar-richardson-to-parents-i-didnt-kill-it/

 

[osu]

Richardson asked her parents several times if they still loved her and they replied that they did, but she found little comfort from her mom and dad on what she had just been through.

“There’s nothing we can do now. It’s in the papers. We’re in the news. The neighbors are already calling me,” her mom said after learning of the allegations.

“It makes me sick...I’m losing my child and I’ve done everything right," her mom added.


‘I never meant to kill my baby, I never did it on purpose:’ Jury hears Richardson’s interrogation tapes

 

[iluvmua]

Ok, where did that info come from? Is that from the police records discussed in court or just rumors? Because if she said the above that would certainly change how I feel. But I also thought she burnt the baby at first and that turns out it was not true either.

It is mentioned in the August 1th online article on the Journal News.

 

[iluvmua]

I want to know whose blood they found in the carpet, bathroom and hallway.

She would not be bleeding for three days and you can't tell me she would just roam around her room etc. With nothing under her to stop the bleeding.

Jmo

 

[cherrymeg]

I want to know whose blood they found in the carpet, bathroom and hallway.

She would not be bleeding for three days and you can't tell me she would just roam around her room etc. With nothing under her to stop the bleeding.

Jmo

You do bleed after you have a baby. Was she able to get the placenta out right away and did she get all of it? I can't imagine how you could clean up all the blood and fluids after giving birth.

 

[Winterhike]

I think Dad's fixation on the BCP was him attempting to cling to the possibility that the doctor could share some of the blame for the baby's death (not true, of course). He also asked her if her rights had been read, etc. I think he was running through technicalities that might lessen her culpability, like a lot of desperate parents would. (Whether that is a healthy way to parent is another question.)

Based on their demeanor in the interview room, I think Dad was honestly blindsided, and Mom was... not. I think that if the secret had never come out for like 20 years and then it did somehow, Dad would hypothetically have still been upset, and Mom would have been glad Skylar covered it up, no matter the consequences. I think that although Skylar seems manipulative at best, and was right on the edge of being responsible for all of her own choices, in this stressful situation she behaved exactly how her mother trained her to behave. I think there's no way Mom had zero suspicion about the pregnancy, especially since Skylar's eating disorder has probably caused many, many lies over the years.

I also agree with whoever said upthread that the eating disorder appears to currently be raging. This is not a surprise, given her level of stress knowing the trial was approaching. I speak from experience when I say she's probably sitting in that courtroom going between terror and a numbed-out fog, even if she isn't medicated (which she might be). I wonder how hard she tried to starve the pregnancy away, and how compromised her brain function has been throughout the eating disorder. Again, I speak from experience when I say she could have been hammering out decent grades but making horrible choices about self-care along the way. This all could have added to her panic and inability to make acceptable choices for herself and her baby. (NOT an excuse for whatever she did, from murder to burial, just could be part of the picture).

Based on how she looks this week, if I were her parents and/or her defense team I would have been trying to get her into inpatient treatment and thus delaying the legal proceedings.

Edited to add I think it's really weird that she wouldn't go to some other doctor's office to get her birth control refilled in July. Didn't she realize they would have records of her last visit and ask what happened? But then of course I'm thinking like a well-nourished adult person with a fully-formed prefrontal cortex, I guess.

 

[cherrymeg]

I just started following this case. I've heard that the doctor gave her an ultrasound in on the April 26th visit but some articles claim she was asked to return for one and a follow up appointment. BC was supposedly prescribed which I assume you can check with a pharmacy. In the video showing her talking to the police and then her parents she seems extremely young and naive. It doesn't seem like an act. She was worried about her parents still loving her. Her dad seemed to have practical concerns.
If she was on her parents health insurance it might depend on what kind and the company, would an ultrasound have upped the price of a visit or shown up on a statement? If it wasn't done by a trained ultrasound tech and looked at by doctor that specializes in them, that doesn't seem like a proper one.
I know it's a slippery slope when medical confidences are broken. You wonder if the doctor she saw who suggested they were worried about her attempting an abortion on her own should have seen that not as a danger to her fetus but to herself. I don't think she did that. She didn't want her parents to know couldn't the doctor have insisted she speak to a counselor or someone on the staff that could help her emotionally.

 

[AllyBeeUK]

I'm trying to edit this to make it a little nicer.


Whoever said she looks like she's good at manipulating, I'm with them. She tells a lot of lies and they know it. But who knows? Maybe they lied to her?


Before I engage you, I want to find out if you think that conflict is abuse. Or if you think debate is fighting. I want to rebut you said, but I don't want you to then believe yourself to be a victim.

Please consider that it may be the hormones from pregnancy clouding your judgment here. Putting yourself in this girl's shoes might be an overabundance of empathy. She had different needs, wants, and desires than you. If you had been forced to have your child at home, and it was [edited] injured or worse...would you have struggled to hide that from everyone you know? Wouldn't your prenatal progress have been charted because you had been going to see the doctor prior to birth? Already you would not be in her position.


Believing that this teenage mother, who I have suggested is a victim of neglect and abuse from her own parents, did not neglect or abuse her own child, seems dishonest to me. If she wanted the baby to survive, she would have made plans for it after birth and she would have probably gotten some prenatal care. She probably wouldn't have taken birth control pills after knowing she was pregnant, also, though they're not supposed to be able to kill a growing baby. I believe she thought she could induce a miscarriage by taking them.

Because her parents claimed not to know she was pregnant, I think they are lying and complicit. I think they were the adults and they should have seen and known what was going on and let her feel loved and supported. I think they probably aren't very honest people, so I don't think their daughter is very honest.

I'm wondering if there's bigotries we are not even aware of. Was the baby's father a person of color?

I don't think pillorying or Lynch Mob or attacks

Are the best word here. She's a girl but she's also a woman. We have kids all over Baltimore who are abused into gangs at age 14 and then tried as adults. This girl has a lot more than the Baltimore area kids who get tried as adults, but just because she's blond or small or has a high voice, we're still referring to her as a girl. She has agency, more than we're giving her, but we can't separate her from the surrounding structure. But I don't think being critical of her is the same thing as attacking.

That's your opinion, mine is different. Feel free to not "engage" me if you don't like it! I find the tone of your message deeply condescending.

I have not said I think she is innocent, I have said I don't know. Nor have I said her actions have covered her jn glory. I don't like the way she has acted but that is not the same as believing she is guilty of murder.

My children are 9 and 2 so no, I don't have pregnancy hormones! How rude of you! The only way I would have a different opinion is because I am an over emotional woman, incredible!!!

If it is unacceptable to express a different opinion on this forum then I will go elsewhere.

I am a big girl, I can handle a differing opinion. I worked in law for 10 years, I am used to it. What I will not accept is personal attack and abusive messages both of which I have received during the course of discussing this case.