August 23, 2019 at 01:37AM
The trial for the former Ohio high school cheerleader accused of killing and burying her newborn days after her prom is set to begin next month.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, 20, will face trial Sept. 3 on murder charges in the death of her baby, whose remains were discovered in July 2017 in her family's back yard in Carlisle.
Prosecutors claim that the then-18-year-old concealed her pregnancy and gave birth in May 2017 to a full-term baby girl. She then allegedly buried the girl she named Annabelle in her back yard.
It wasn't until two months later that Richard told her OB-GYN about the birth, prompting the physician to notify the police, according to court documents.
Remains were recovered from the Richardson family's back yard but were too decomposed to determine a cause of death.
Her attorneys, however, have maintained that the infant was stillborn. Richardson has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in the death of her baby.
Her trial date was set after the defense's request to move the high-profile proceedings to another county was rejected.
They claim her home county has been "bombarded" with pretrial publicity that would make it difficult to seat a jury.
With Post wires
The trial for the former Ohio high school cheerleader accused of killing and burying her newborn days after her prom is set to begin next month.
Brooke Skylar Richardson, 20, will face trial Sept. 3 on murder charges in the death of her baby, whose remains were discovered in July 2017 in her family's back yard in Carlisle.
Prosecutors claim that the then-18-year-old concealed her pregnancy and gave birth in May 2017 to a full-term baby girl. She then allegedly buried the girl she named Annabelle in her back yard.
It wasn't until two months later that Richard told her OB-GYN about the birth, prompting the physician to notify the police, according to court documents.
Remains were recovered from the Richardson family's back yard but were too decomposed to determine a cause of death.
Her attorneys, however, have maintained that the infant was stillborn. Richardson has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in the death of her baby.
Her trial date was set after the defense's request to move the high-profile proceedings to another county was rejected.
They claim her home county has been "bombarded" with pretrial publicity that would make it difficult to seat a jury.
With Post wires