GUILTY GUILTY OF ABUSE OF A CORPSE ONLY OH - Annabelle Richardson, newborn, found in grave 7 May 2017 #3

[Jewels53]

I don’t think he testified in court. It was Dr Susan Brown a forensic pathologist from the Montgomery County Coroners office who testified.


Dr Susan Brown, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County Coroner's Office was the first person called to the stand Friday.

'All evidence points to homicide': Doctor takes the stand during Skylar Richardson trial

ETA: I just saw the other reply above that he did testify.

Thanks! I didn't think he did. I just posted before I saw the replies. I am done with subject. Imo it should have never been brought up.

 

[Seattle1]

Did he testify? I haven't watched all of the trial.

I know Dr. Susan Brown, forensic pathologist, at the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, was the first witness to take the stand last Friday.

The following article names Dr. Uptegrove -- after opening statements but I don't recall.

‘All evidence points to homicide’: Doctor testifies on baby’s death in Skylar Richardson trial

On Wednesday, opening arguments began and several witnesses took the stand including the baby’s father, Trey Johnson, two OBGYN’s from Hilltop OBGYN, deputies from the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and Coroner Dr. Russell Uptegrove.

 

[osu]

DBM

 

[zea mays]

The defense claims police were overzealous in questioning Richardson because they believed at the time she burned her baby.

Brooke Richardson trial: Defense rests after Day 7

Overzealous?

The coroner's forensic pathologist had just told LE that the baby’s remains were charred --- initiating police to request BSR come back to police station for 2nd interview.

I don't know that I could sit face to face very long with BSR if I had scientific information before me indicating BSR had char-burned her newborn.

However, after there were in-fact no charred bones recovered, I do think prosecutor failed to rethink questions posed to the testifying detectives.

MOO

I think this is very important point. They were asking the questions that way because they believed this IS what the evidence showed. They weren't trying to convince her of something they didn't think actually happened. Now, I have reservations about them continuing with that theory after the expert walked that opinion back, but that doesn't change that the detectives were genuine in their desire to have to story match the evidence.

Yeah in that case they just failed to do blood tests before determining she would die within days if not locked up due to anorexia. I myself was diagnosed after half an hour assessment and no medical testing. My parents told I would die quickly if they didn't lock me up. It was a nightmare. The psych referring people was in on the insurance scam I guess.

But the other gal they discovered her issue within a day or two after doing blood tests when she got super sick. She had not been diagnosed with diabetes prior.

Wow. That's a horrible experience and I'm sorry you had it.

I think it’s easy to get caught up in sympathizing with BSR (I certainly do at so many points) and therefore try to rationalize to a degree what “she must have been going through” when she gave birth.

However....

When I stand back and think about seeing the proverbial forest through the trees..... it’s comes down to the fact she did nothing to try to keep the baby during the childbirth. Emotional abuse by family aside, dysfunctional relationships aside, the fear of rejection aside, previous sexual abuse aside- even NOT wanting the baby aside- she did not try to ensure a safe birth.

She did not know it would be a stillborn child (if it was), so one would expect the birthing mother to try to keep a baby alive during and after childbirth. The fact she did not seek help is where the child endangerment charge makes sense to me. Even if you don’t want the baby, you try it keep it alive and BSR did not. And if you don’t try to keep the baby alive, then you want it dead.

Just a tragic situation for her to find herself in, no doubt. But being scared of mommy is no excuse.

MOO.

Exactly! If that baby was stillborn (and I don't believe it was, but if...) she had no way of predicting that. She still should've had a plan for a live birth. And she just didn't.

I found this interesting,too. In the first interview when Det Faine told her they were going to search her phone he asked if she had searched for anything about abortion and she said she looked for “something like how to get rid of a baby “ and saw something about different pills you could take,etc. I wonder why that didn’t show up. Looks like the only searches they could find were 1. Hilltop Ob/Gyn, 2. What happens at an ob/gyn appt when you are pregnant and 3. Babypedia. The defense keeps bringing up babypedia.com like it’s a place to shop for baby clothes. I googled it and it looks like a site that has forums and general info.

If you click on any link on the Babypedia page there isn’t any more info about babies there..only on the homepage.

Not sure why the search she said she made about “how to get rid of a baby”, pills, etc., didn’t show up on her phone or computer? I wonder if maybe she had access to another computer that she used possibly at school or the library that they didn't know about?

JMO

I thought about all of the places she could've used to look that up, too. It was way too specific to be a lie, IMO. As for the other stuff, that just seemed like such an odd time to bring it up if you had evidence of it. Why not bring it up on cross of the forensic computer audit?

 

[princessdana]

Thanks! I didn't think he did. I just posted before I saw the replies. I am done with subject. Imo it should have never been brought up.

 

[osu]

Carlisle HS School Library would be the perfect resource -- as well as YMCA where she worked:

CHS Library-Media Center

The Media Center occupies about 4700 square feet of Carlisle High School. It began as a full-service student library complex when the building was constructed in the 1970s, and has now transitioned to a nearly all-digital resource center, featuring more than 50 student computer workstations. bbm

Additionally, The Media Center is home to a TV production facility, also original to the building. The production facility consists of a TV studio, editing suite, and audio/visual storage room. In addition to providing a media production space for student projects, the facility also contains distribution equipment that allows for the composition and programming of all content for broadcast on the The Carlisle Channel (local access channel 15 on Spectrum TV). The facility also houses a vast video archive of most school programs dating back to 1988.

Carlisle Indians - carlisle-high-school

Good point about the YMCA. She probably had access to a computer while at work too.

JMO

 

[princessdana]

oops sorry didn't mean to post that

 

[MyBelle]

Exactly, you're making my point. They know that she did not conceive in February or March is that was totally out of the picture. And she only had unprotected sex the previous year in August.

If her periods were irregular or not, and she bled during the pregnancy she said, isn't it simple to just say I only had unprotected sex once in August.

At least that way, her doctor would know approximately, and not even consider 32 weeks IYKWIM.

You've made me even reconsider another huge problem she has. I think getting any information out of her is like pulling teeth! She doesn't want to talk at all and give anyone pertinent information, and therefore I can understand why the detectives were so frustrated as she would not give them a narrative.

Perhaps that's why they felt they had no choice except to use the Reid technique.

BBM. That isn't the point. We have no way of knowing whether she was having sex with Brandon. She was already pregnant and may have thought they were just incredibly lucky. Her mother certainly assumed they were having sex. I think it highly likely they were having sex. Whether it was protected or not is irrelevant because in hindsight, we know she was already pregnant.

The question the doctor's office always asks isn't, "when did you last have unprotected sex?" but is "what is the date of your last period? BSR claimed it was March/April but the doctor did the urine test to make sure. He also took measurements. But even looking at her, not even the doctor could accurately pinpoint the gestational age because the baby was small. I think it was small because of extreme malnutrition.

JMO

 

[SeesSeas]

I just watched the 2nd interview with SR and the detectives. I’m gobsmacked by how they kept talking and talking and talking. They never shut up and rarely let a pause occur so she could realize she had to come up with responses.

It too late now, but it seems like they should have posed a question, then allowed for a long uncomfortable pause to pressure her to speak, but speak by formulating her own words for her answer.

The detectives seem like blithering fools, afraid to let even a nanosecond of silence occur. How could she even think with all their constant chatter?

Did anyone else pick up on this? I don't think it’s the Reid technique style; I just think it was inane interview skills.

JMO since I’m not a detective. I found it extremely frustrating to listen to. Whenever I thought “ok, now she’ll speak,” one of the detectives would start talking again, never giving her an open ended Q and letting it sit there waiting for a response.

COURT TV has a discussion video about the excessive 'chatter' by investigators in the 2nd interrogation (starting at timestamp 5:40):
https://www.courttv.com/title/9-9-19-oh-v-richardson-who-actually-confessed/
96 pages, 2,400 lines
Investigators Speaking: 2,035 lines
Skylar Speaking: 365 lines
They also noted that much of "Skylar Speaking" was "Inaudible"

 

[Mariposa]

Exactly! If that baby was stillborn (and I don't believe it was, but if...) she had no way of predicting that. She still should've had a plan for a live birth. And she just didn't.

The counterpoint to that is the defense will argue she thought she had more time to decide what to do. And that she had good reason to think she had time. Dr. Andrew testified he told her at the appointment she would have a baby in about 10 weeks. Less than 2 weeks later was the birth.

 

[Mariposa]

I just watched the 2nd interview with SR and the detectives. I’m gobsmacked by how they kept talking and talking and talking. They never shut up and rarely let a pause occur so she could realize she had to come up with responses.

It too late now, but it seems like they should have posed a question, then allowed for a long uncomfortable pause to pressure her to speak, but speak by formulating her own words for her answer.

The detectives seem like blithering fools, afraid to let even a nanosecond of silence occur. How could she even think with all their constant chatter?

Did anyone else pick up on this? I don't think it’s the Reid technique style; I just think it was inane interview skills.

JMO since I’m not a detective. I found it extremely frustrating to listen to. Whenever I thought “ok, now she’ll speak,” one of the detectives would start talking again, never giving her an open ended Q and letting it sit there waiting for a response.

IMO these detectives weren't exactly interrogation superstars. But the sense I got is that they had her exactly where they wanted her. She was a legal adult yes, but acted like a meek scared kid called to the principal's office and they ran with it.

They must have been marveling at their luck when she came in without a hint of legal representation the second time. It was almost too easy. This whole case rises or falls on that interview.

 

[Winterhike]

The counterpoint to that is the defense will argue she thought she had more time to decide what to do. And that she had good reason to think she had time. Dr. Andrew testified he told her at the appointment she would have a baby in about 10 weeks. Less than 2 weeks later was the birth.

I believe that he said this and that she took him at his word, but I think it's a little odd that he made such a point of it. Even if he thought she was at 32 weeks, babies come early all the time, especially in situations where complications are present or prenatal care has been sub-optimal. And if they do come early, being prepared to have access to medical care is often critical. You'd think he'd have been a little more likely educate her about the timing being a window instead of a target.

 

[ReillyElizabeth]

I am so far behind in all this, and every time I think I have a handle on the case, I see a comment here with a link to contradict what I thought was correct!
I did just watch the first video on this thread, of Skylar talking to her parents when they first found out about the baby. I thought her father handled it very well, seemed naturally shocked and aghast at the circumstances, and struggling to understand what was going on. Something that struck me was that he was very fixated on the fact that the doctor gave Skylar a prescription for birth control pills at the same appointment where she was told she was pregnant. The father correctly sees this is very strange and inappropriate, and keeps asking S about it, and she gives tearful evasive answers. He's concerned that she says she starts taking the pills straight away and explains to her that birth control pills are meant to trick your body into thinking you're pregnant, so absolutely inappropriate to take in pregnancy. His line of thinking seems to be that maybe taking the tablets harmed the baby.
I've read elsewhere on this thread/ news items, that Skylar was distressed at the pregnancy news and asked the doctor to give her the BC script so that her mother wouldn't get suspicious, as she wasn't ready to tell her mother she was pregnant; the doctor reluctantly agreed. She couldn't explain this away to her parents because she has to admit that she convinced the doctor to help her deceive them.
It seems to me that Skylar has a pattern of panicking and setting up an elaborate lie to cover her tracks and if you focus on one small specific lie - as the father did in regard to the BC prescription - you can lose perspective of the big picture. This might be why there are so many contradictory stories about what happened to Annabelle during birth and death. Skylar keeps shifting and rearranging her story to placate the last person she spoke to, but she's never actually addressed what really happened. As her high school writing teacher pointed out, she can write out the plot, but she can't address motivation.

I've seen this too in at least one article, but I'm not sure it is correct. There was certainly no evidence at trial that the doctor agreed, reluctantly or not, to help Skylar deceive her mother by prescribing her birth control pills despite the fact she was pregnant. The doctor testified that they had already prescribed the birth control pills, but canceled the prescription after learning Skylar was pregnant. My suspicion is that the pharmacy messed up and didn't cancel the prescription as directed, as there was some discussion on this subject during when Skylar was talking to her parents after the first police interrogation, and the mom says something about the pharmacy calling to say the prescription was ready. In any event, these unsourced comments in articles are not before the jury, as there was no evidence along those lines presented at trial

 

[Mariposa]

I believe that he said this and that she took him at his word, but I think it's a little odd that he made such a point of it. Even if he thought she was at 32 weeks, babies come early all the time, especially in situations where complications are present or prenatal care has been sub-optimal. And if they do come early, being prepared to have access to medical care is often critical. You'd think he'd have been a little more likely educate her about the timing being a window instead of a target.

Yeah I see your point. I suppose he thought she was going to come back to Hilltop soon for an appointment like he told her to do, and that he would have a lot of time to counsel her at future appointments.

I'm kind of surprised the clinic only tried to reach her 2 or 3 times when she didn't make a follow up appointment. But then again they are busy I'm sure and there were privacy limitations on reaching out to her due to her living with her parents I suppose. Still, you would think that a high school student showing up for a routine birth control prescription appointment and suddenly revealed to be (third trimester) pregnant already would be hard to forget and hard not to wonder WTH happened (until of course she came back mid July).

 

[ReillyElizabeth]

I found this interesting,too. In the first interview when Det Faine told her they were going to search her phone he asked if she had searched for anything about abortion and she said she looked for “something like how to get rid of a baby “ and saw something about different pills you could take,etc. I wonder why that didn’t show up. Looks like the only searches they could find were 1. Hilltop Ob/Gyn, 2. What happens at an ob/gyn appt when you are pregnant and 3. Babypedia. The defense keeps bringing up babypedia.com like it’s a place to shop for baby clothes. I googled it and it looks like a site that has forums and general info.

I suspect this is just another instance of Skylar being suggestible, and trying to tell police what they wanted to hear. Faine told her they were going to search her phone, and asked her a couple of times whether they were going to find searches about abortion or getting rid of a baby, making clear that it would be bad for her if she did not tell them ahead of the searches if they would find that kind of thing. Skylar sounds really uncertain when she says maybe she did a search about "something like" how to get rid of a baby. When pressed about it further, she says she may have searched like one time, didn't think they'd find much, etc. In other words, my sense was that she was pretty uncertain, and was afraid to say she didn't do any searches, in case they found something along those lines.

 

[SeesSeas]

I haven't read it yet but found this...

I-Team Payroll Project: With multiple paychecks, coroner makes $317K

Hmmm.... interesting article!
I-Team Payroll Project: With multiple paychecks, coroner makes $317K
Dr. Russell Uptegrove is among the top 10 highest-paid employees in both Montgomery and Warren counties, according to the Dayton Daily News I-Team Payroll Project.
[...]
“I’m a hard working son of a . That’s how it happens,” Uptegrove said when asked how he is able to perform multiple jobs. “I don’t play golf. I don’t have a lot of other time-consuming hobbies.”
[...]

Here is the video which includes his testimony:
Law & Crime Network
Published on Sep 4, 2019
Skylar Richardson Trial Day 1 Witnesses John Smith & Russel Uptegrove

 

[osu]

Dr Stewart Bassman said today that BSR’s dependent personality disorder makes her want to please authority figures. If that’s the case, then why didn’t she listen to her doctor, Dr Andrews, when he told her that she had to come back for an ultrasound appointment the very next day? Why would she continue to avoid calls from his office and even when he tried personally calling her himself?


“Cincinnati psychologist Stuart Bassman said "Skylar was being manipulated" into making false statements during interrogations. He described Richardson as a vulnerable, immature person whose dependent personality disorder makes her want to please authority figures, even to the point of making incriminating statements that were untrue.”
Doctor testifies about Skylar Richardson's reaction to pregnancy

JMO

 

[dixiegirl1035]

BBM. That isn't the point. We have no way of knowing whether she was having sex with Brandon. She was already pregnant and may have thought they were just incredibly lucky. Her mother certainly assumed they were having sex. I think it highly likely they were having sex. Whether it was protected or not is irrelevant because in hindsight, we know she was already pregnant.

The question the doctor's office always asks isn't, "when did you last have unprotected sex?" but is "what is the date of your last period? BSR claimed it was March/April but the doctor did the urine test to make sure. He also took measurements. But even looking at her, not even the doctor could accurately pinpoint the gestational age because the baby was small. I think it was small because of extreme malnutrition.

JMO

Oh, I see your point and why it differs from mine.

You took into consideration that Brandon could have been the father and that the doctor would even consider it was a month-old or perhaps a two month old pregnancy when the measurements were showing it was the previous-year by the doctor. I had this discounted even consideration of that in my flow of logic.

 

[Winterhike]

Dr Stewart Bassman said today that BSR’s dependent personality disorder makes her want to please authority figures. If that’s the case, then why didn’t she listen to her doctor, Dr Andrews, when he told her that she had to come back for an ultrasound appointment the very next day? Why would she continue to avoid calls from his office and even when he tried personally calling her himself?


“Cincinnati psychologist Stuart Bassman said "Skylar was being manipulated" into making false statements during interrogations. He described Richardson as a vulnerable, immature person whose dependent personality disorder makes her want to please authority figures, even to the point of making incriminating statements that were untrue.”
Doctor testifies about Skylar Richardson's reaction to pregnancy

JMO

I speculate that the answer to this question was that at this point, her mother loomed larger as a much scarier and and riskier authority figure than the doctor. I bet in her calculations of the risk, it seemed way worse to make another trip to the doctor (which she seemed unlikely to do without her mother's involvement or knowledge based on their ~one million text messages about the first appointment). I think it still fits the pattern we've seen from her -- she chose the path that seemed the least scary and avoided what was about to happen until it blew up.

I think this might actually also be why she returned to the same medical practice in July even though that was a terrible idea if she wanted to keep her secret -- it was the path of least resistance to just go where her mother planned for her to go rather than do the adultish legwork of seeking out another doctor. (I also think deep down she was having some guilt and her subconscious sent her back to the place where someone would ask her the truth, but...)

 

[tabletalk123]

Of course the prosecutor never called the mom to the stand. To me, it makes it obvious she knew and possibly involved and would have dismantled their case and chance of conviction.