'OMG, my belly is back!' What Ohio cheerleader, 18, on trial for killing her baby text her mother HOURS after secretly giving birth and burying the infant in their backyard before taking a gym selfie of her post bump figure
- Brooke Skylar Richardson, now 20, is on trial for murdering her baby daughter
- In May 2017, she gave birth in the middle of the night then buried her baby
- The remains were discovered in July after she confessed to a doctor what she had done
- Richardson, who was 18 at the time, claims she panicked when the baby came early but that it was a stillborn
- Prosecutors say she killed the infant and buried her afterwards
- On May 7, after giving birth, she text her mom saying she was 'speechless' at how 'happy she was' that her 'belly was back'
- She also went to the gym and snapped a photo of her torso in a mirror
- It was the same day she had given birth to the baby and buried her in the yard
- Among those who testified was the baby's father, Trey Johnson
- Now 21, he said he and Richardson has sex twice in 2016 - once without protection
A teenager accused of murdering her baby moments after giving birth texted her mother saying: 'I am literally speechless with how happy I am my belly is back OMG' after she delivered the infant, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Brooke Skylar Richardson is on trial for the murder of her baby girl. She gave birth in May 2017 then buried the baby, who she named Annabelle, in her back yard.
She was caught in July that year when she went back to the same doctor's practice where she learned she was pregnant to ask for a birth control refill. That is when doctors asked what came of her pregnancy and she confessed to 'burying everything'.
Prosecutors say she beat the girl and had researched how to 'get rid of a baby' after finding out in April that she was pregnant.
The cheerleader's attorney say the baby was pale when she gave birth on her bathroom floor and that there was no umbilical chord attached. She said the baby was not breathing.
Her attorneys say she panicked and buried her afterwards.
They claim she thought she had months until she was due to deliver but when the baby arrived in the middle of the night only 11 days after she learned she was expecting, she did not know what to do so buried her in the backyard.
In opening arguments at her Ohio trial on Wednesday, prosecutors read a text message that she sent her mother - who both sides say did not know she was pregnant - which read: 'I'm literally speachless (sic) with how happy am... I am literally so excited now just for dinner to wear something cute yayyyy my belly is back and now I'm takin(sic) this opportunity to make it amazing.'
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Brooke Skylar Richardson is shown in court in Ohio on Wednesday. She is on trial for murder and manslaughter for having a baby and then burying her in her backyard in May 2017. The teenager took this selfie hours after giving birth after going to the gym
She also visited the gym hours after giving birth and took a selfie in the mirror which showed off her stomach.
In the image, which was presented for the first time at trial, she is seen lifting up her t-shirt and standing to the side.
The teenager sent it the same day she gave birth, they said.Prosecutors presented it along with an image of her baby's bones.
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Among those who testified on Wednesday, the first day of the trial, was 21-year-old Trey Johnson who says he is the baby's father.
He said he and Richardson had sex twice in August 2016, once without protection, and that is when she likely fell pregnant.
He was never told about the baby.
Alongside Johnson, the doctor who first told Richardson she was pregnant testified.
He said he advised her that she did not have to have the baby if she did not want to.
Prosecutors presented Richardson - now 20 - as a premeditated, image-obsessed cheerleader.
Richardson is shown in court on Wednesday in Ohio
Now 20, Richardson is on trial for aggravated murder and manslaughter
Richardson's defense is that she did not know she was pregnant until 11 days before she gave birth and that the baby was a stillborn. She says she panicked and buried her because she did not know what to do and no one in her family knew she was even pregnant
On May 7, while her family was sleeping in their home, she gave birth quietly then, prosecutors say, killed her.
'Brooke took her own daughter's life, destroyed all evidence of her birth and buried her in the backyard,' prosecutors said.
The teenager was caught after going to a different doctor to refill her birth control pills after she had given birth.
When that doctor learned from her record that she had been pregnant, she asked what became of the baby and Richardson confessed to burying her in her backyard.
Dr. William Andrew was who informed her she was pregnant when she came to see him in April 2017.
He told the jury that it was difficult to tell how far along she was because she as unsure of the date of conception but that he estimated she was around 32 weeks pregnant.
Andrew told the court there did not appear to be anything wrong with the baby. He said at some point during their appointment, she told him: 'I can't have a baby. I'm going to college in September.'
Richardon's parents, shown with her in 2017, are still supporting her. Both the prosecution and the defense say they did not know about her pregnancy
He told her to tell someone she was pregnant but, he said on Wednesday, she did not react to the news at all.
He delivered her and her brother and is known to the family.
It is unclear why she went to the doctor's office in the first place.
In July, she returned to refill her prescription for birth control but saw a different physician in the same practice.
Richardson is shown in her mugshot in 2017
Dr. Casey Boyce said when she asked her about her pregnancy, which there was a record of, Richardson started sobbing and told her: 'I had it alone in my house and buried it in my backyard.'
'She didn’t want me to tell anyone that I knew,' she said on Wednesday.
Boyce refilled the prescription then let her leave.
She said she then consulted with Dr. Andrew and they called the police.
The prosecution then called two crime scene workers who visited the family home to the stand.
They told how they were drawn to a fire pit in the family's back yard where the baby's remains were first thought to have been tossed.
The bones in the fire pit in fact belonged to an animal.
Richardon showed no emotion throughout the day's testimony until prosecutors presented photographs of the baby's bones.
At the sight of them, she began to shake.
Richardson's defense attorneys say the text message to her mother was taken out of context and speaks more to her concern with her body image and history of eating disorders than it does to the pregnancy.
'Those texts that we now see after May 7 … were Skylar focusing on the only thing she thought she could control at the time, which was her body,' Charlie Rittgers told the court.
He added that her mother was 'obsessive' about her daughter's weight, cheered her on whenever she lost any and frequently exchanged texts with her about it.
They say the entire case has been a 'rush to judgement' based on a medical examiner 'mistakenly' categorizing the baby's bones as being burned when they were not.
She cried when she told her and said that she had been born dead.
Later in a police interview, she said the baby had been alive for around 'five minutes' and that it died after she thought she had squeezed it too tightly.
