‘My Parents Are Going To Kill Me,’ Former Cheerleader Accused Of Killing Her Newborn Tells Police

A former cheerleader, on trial for killing her newborn daughter, was worried about what her parents would think when they discovered her secret pregnancy, according to an interrogation tape played in court Thursday.

“My parents are going to kill me,” Brooke Skylar Richardson told police the two-hour interview, according to WHIO. “I didn’t want to tell them, but now they are going to find out.”

Richardson appears both worried and upset in the video, as she tells police that the daughter she gave birth to in the middle of the night was never breathing.

“It came out when I pushed and it wasn’t breathing,” she says through tears, adding that the baby never moved or opened her eyes.

Richardson told police that she “never meant to hurt her,” then asked whether she’ll be in trouble and whether she’s going to go to jail, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Richardson is facing charges of aggravated murder and involuntary manslaughter for allegedly killing her newborn in May 2017, then burying her body in the backyard while the rest of her family slept.

Brooke Skylar Richardson Photo: AP

But, her defense attorneys have argued that the baby was stillborn and Richardson buried her because she didn’t know what else to do.

Jurors were able to hear from Richardson herself about the killings for the first time Thursday, when one of the police interrogation tapes was played in court.

Throughout the tape, Richardson repeatedly denies that she killed her daughter, even after her parents are brought into the room.

On the tape, her parents can be heard telling Richardson to tell the truth, and she continues to insist that the baby was never alive.

“I’m sorry,” she tells them.

Richardson asks whether her parents still love her and asks to hold her mother’s hand. After confirming that they did still love her, her mother tells her she will be going to jail.

“There’s nothing we can do now,” she tells her according to WXIX-TV. “It’s in the papers. We’re in the news. The neighbors are already calling me.”

Her mother then goes on to tell her daughter it makes her “sick” she has to lose her daughter when she did everything “right” as a parent.

Richardson also told police that although she had done an internet search for how to perform an abortion, she was too far into her pregnancy and she “did not try and kill my baby.”  

Later in the trial, jurors are expected to hear another interrogation tape, in which prosecutors have said Richardson confesses to killing the infant. However, Richardson’s attorneys have claimed that the statements were coerced after she made repeated denials.

“They disregard all truth that does not fit into their theory,” defense attorney Charlie Rittgers said earlier this week.