Skylar Richardson probation terminated
LEBANON – Brooke Skylar Richardson, who was acquitted last year of most charges in the death of her newborn child, told a judge Tuesday that she wants to “be a normal person again.”
“That’s all,” the 21-year-old said during a hearing in Warren County Common Pleas Court.
Judge Donald Oda II on Tuesday granted a request by Richardson’s attorneys to terminate her probation nearly two years early.
At a trial last year, a jury convicted Richardson of one count, gross abuse of a corpse, and she was sentenced to three years of probation. Oda said the charge was the lowest level of felony. Richardson had no previous criminal history and followed all the rules of court-ordered supervision, he said.
“There is no reason for me to invest the time and resources of my probation department in supervising you,” Oda said.
A sentence of probation, he added, is not punishment or rehabilitation. Oda said it gave Richardson the opportunity to show why she shouldn’t go to prison.
Richardson was 18 when she was accused in 2017 of killing her infant child and burying the body in her parents’ backyard. Prosecutors said she did it in secrecy to protect her picture-perfect image. Her attorneys said she had a stillbirth and didn’t know what else to do.
In the 14 months since her acquittal, Richardson has completed two semesters at an unidentified college and worked part time at the law firm that represented her, Rittgers and Rittgers. She sought other jobs, according to her
attorneys, but was rejected because she was on probation.
Richardson spoke haltingly at times during Tuesday’s hearing and apologized for not showing more remorse – something the family of the child’s father said they haven’t yet seen.
“I feel a lot of things, but it’s hard to show,” Richardson said. “I suffer a lot… I am very sorry. I hurt a lot.”
She also said she plans to attend law school. She wants to work as a public defender.
“I want to contribute to society as much as I can – to prove that you made the right decision,” she told Oda.
The mother of the child’s father on Tuesday asked Oda to have Richardson serve the full three-year sentence.
Tracy Johnson said she doesn’t believe Richardson has been rehabilitated.
“Who goes from nothing to giving
birth and burying their own child in secret, and then acting like nothing happened until they’re caught?” Johnson said in court. “That’s the first bad thing you do…and you show absolutely no remorse for it? Where do you go from there?”
At last year’s trial, a jury found Richardson not guilty of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment.
There are people in the community, Oda told Richardson, “who believe you got away with murder.” He called that “the perception of the case.”
But the reality, Oda said, is that the conviction is for a low-level felony.
“You are employed. You are attending college,” he said, adding that he had no reason to believe she would commit any crimes in the future.
“Good luck to you,” he said.