Carlisle buried baby trial ends for Thursday after interrogation video played

The trial will resume at 8:45 a.m.

INITIAL REPORT

After pointed opening statements in the Brooke Skylar Richardson trial and testimony by doctors who treated the Carlisle teen accused of killing her newborn daughter in 2017 and burying her in parents’ backyard, the prosecution’s case was expected to continue today with forensic experts.

The trial was delayed this morning for nearly two hours. Attorney Charles H. Rittgers was not at the defense table when the jury was brought in, and Charles M. Rittgers, his son, said his father will be absent because of a “personal family issue.”

Follow our reporter live in the courtroom:

Richardson, now 20, is charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

The prosecution is expected to call additional forensic scientists who examined the baby’s remains to the stand this morning.

The defense says Richardson’s baby who she named Annabelle was stillborn, and the teen walked with the newborn into the backyard on May 7, 2017, buried her with a garden shovel in a shallow grave in a tree line and marked the grave with flower pot.

It was not until two months later when doctors who realized she was no longer pregnant, and they notified law enforcement about the “possible stillbirth.”

Richardson was not arrested until after a “mistake” by a prosecution witness who examined the remains and determined the bones had been burned that detectives pressed Richardson for a confession. The expert, Dr. Beth Murray, a forensic anthropologist, later recanted her opinion about the bones begin burned.

TRIAL COVERAGE

• What happened on the first day?

• Stillborn or alive? That's the key issue in the Carlisle buried baby trial

• More than 2 years of twists and turns lead to Carlisle buried baby trial this week

• Who is Brooke Skylar Richardson?

Prosecutors say Richardson had no intention of having the baby and made no plans for delivery or other options after being told she was expecting. They say she told investigators her baby was alive for about five minutes and she many have put a lighter to the baby’s leg.

It is likely a forensic expert will be called to testify about the burning issue, specifically that the tissue of the infant could have been burned, but not the bones. The remains were skeletal with little tissue remaining.

Wednesday’s last witness, Warren County Coroner, Dr. Russell Uptegrove, took the jury through an array of photos of the backyard where the remains were found.

Uptegrove said he was with Murray when she said some of the bones were dark and that there may have been some thermal injuries.

The coroner said he informed law enforcement and they went back to the residence to search a fire pit in the backyard, finding only animal bones. More remains of the baby were found in the original location where Richardson pointed out she had buried the body.