Brooke Skylar Richardson requests court to seal 2019 conviction

WARREN COUNTY — A woman previously convicted of abusing her baby’s corpse is requesting a Warren County judge seal her 2019 conviction.

An attorney for Brooke Skylar Richardson, 23, filed the motion in Warren County Common Pleas court Aug. 12. The filing came 19 months after Judge Donald Oda II granted a request to terminate Richardson’s probation early.

Richardson served 14 months of the three-year probation sentence. She was convicted of gross abuse of a corpse after she had her baby in secret and buried her in the backyard of her Carlisle home in May 2017.

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She was acquitted on charges of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, and child endangering, and the Warren County prosecutor said that was most likely because the prosecution couldn’t produce a cause of death of the baby, News Center 7 previously reported.

At the hearing to end her probation, Oda said he was aware of the perception in the case, but said the reality was Richardson was convicted of a low-level felony and had no prior record. He said there had never been any issues with Richardson since her sentencing or before her trial.

Richardson told the court she wanted “to be a normal person again.” She also said she’d been working on her mental health and wanted to be able to go to college and eventually become a public defender to continue in society.

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A hearing to determine if the motion to seal will be approved or denied has not be set.

News Center 7 reached out to Warren County Prosecutor David P. Fornshell for comment. He said he had not reviewed the motion yet and that any comment he would make “would be in a response.”

We’ll update this story as we learn more.

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