A cheerleader in Ohio will face trial next month, accused of smashing in her newborn daughter’s skull, burning her body, and burying her in the backyard garden.
Brooke Skylar Richardson is alleged to have murdered her daughter Annabelle shortly after giving birth back in 2017, just days after her high school prom, The Sun reports.
The now 20-year-old, who has been under house arrest for more than a year, has been charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.
Richardson’s lawyers have accused prosecutors of sensationalising the story by turning it into “something sinister and grotesque,” suggesting rather the then 18-year-old was frightened and saddened after giving birth to a stillborn baby.
Authorities only learned about the death of the baby after Richardson’s doctor notified police.
Whatever the outcome of the trial, the response to this alleged crime highlights the hypocritical nature of our culture. We tell women that their right not to have a baby trumps the baby’s right to life. We tell them a child is only worthy of life if the mother deems him or her worthy of life.
Then, we’re shocked and appalled to read about a woman who is accused of adopting that very barbaric way of thinking just hours too late for it to be legally permissible. In fact, in some states, if this woman had killed her child 24-hours earlier, while she was still in the womb, the death of the same human being wouldn’t have made headlines. The death would even have been celebrated by some portions of the community.
