Report: Family says child in Carlisle infant burning case was stillborn

CINCINNATI -- (WXIX) -- In a new interview with Cincinnati Magazine, the family of Brooke "Skylar" Richardson, an 18-year-old accused of killing and burning her baby girl in her family's back yard, says the child was stillborn.

A Warren County judge issued a gag order in August after Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell said the victim was a baby girl. The infant, Fornshell said, was murdered, then burned in the family fire pit and buried in the back yard.

This week, Cincinnati Magazine published an article featuring interviews with members of Skylar's extended family. One of Skylar's aunts told the magazine the baby was not born full term.

"After further questioning on July 20, Richardson was arrested and charged with reckless homicide. The family claims that police told Richardson that, according to an autopsy, her baby was born alive and that she had dismembered and burned the body—all accusations the family maintains are not true.

“Skylar is a pleaser, and she was already blaming herself about the baby being stillborn,” says Vanessa. “She kept wrestling with the distressing idea that she may have somehow caused the baby to be born stillborn, and I think investigators twisted that around to prove that she is guilty of murder.”

You can read the full Cincinnati Magazine piece here, which features a photo of Skylar in her prom dress. The birth is said to have occurred in early May, after Richardson attended her senior prom.

Skylar was accused of killing the child shortly thereafter. She has been charged with aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, gross abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and child endangering.