Teen Cheerleader Newborn Murder Developments
BANFIELD: In Texas, a Houston mother showed up for court today facing a judge on the charge of child abandonment. Child abandonment -- I know you`ve heard it. It`s one of those legal terms that can mean so many things, right, like, you know, going to the bar while your 5 and 7-year-old are left home alone. This case is not that. This mom is charged with the unthinkable, giving birth at midnight on her kitchen floor and then marching down the stairs of her apartment building to street level, where she`s accused of just dumping that living, breathing newborn into the bushes, leaving the baby for dead. That baby did not die. That baby cried and cried and cried, possibly for upwards of five hours. Somebody heard the cries, stopped, and then rolled tape on what he saw. And what that tape shows is devastating because it is the reality of what it is like when people abandon their babies in this way. So I will warn you,it is not easy to see. This little baby was naked, no diaper, no cotton blanket, just naked on the ground, umbilical cord still attached. She was crawling with ants. She was covered in bug bites. Probable cause statement said she was lying partially in the grass and partially on the concrete sidewalk. It was a neighbor who ultimately called the police about this. The police say they simply showed up, and then followed the trail of blood right back up those stairs and straight to the apartment of 21-year-old Sydney Wotasic (ph). Police say Sydney told them she never checked on that baby after leaving her outside. CNN affiliate KTRK also reports that she says she had no idea she was pregnant, and allegedly neither did the dad. The investigators say they believe that she was trying to hide the pregnancy from her boyfriend. The infant was treated for ant bites and a blood infection that`s believed to have developed because the umbilical cord was just lying there on the ground and still attached to her. If convicted, Ms. Wotasic (ph) is facing 2 to 20, 2 to 20 years in prison. It`s really hard to digest that kind of cruelty when it comes to little tiny baby, whose toughest job is just to lean how to breathe. But the people of Carlisle, Ohio, not far from Cincinnati are coping with the same kind of thing tonight. Only this story involves a very unlikely cast of players and a crime that was much more serious, more deadly. A former high school cheerleader destined to head off for her freshman year in college in just a few weeks instead is cooling her heels at home in an ankle monitor. That is, when she`s not making a court appearance like she did today. That is Brooke Skylar Richardson`s ankle with the monitor on it because she`s charged with killing and then burning and then burying her brand-new baby just two days after her senior prom. She stared straight ahead walking down that court hallway. The charges that she`s facing, extraordinary, aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse. And during her short time in this Ohio courtroom with her family, we learned a couple of new and interesting developments about the former cheerleader. We know that Skylar, as she`s known -- Skylar`s trial is now set for November. And we also found out that prosecutors just might have a lead on who the father is of that baby that she`s accused of killing.</s>DAVID FORNSHELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, WARREN COUNTY, OHIO: We`ve collected DNA, a DNA sample. Anecdotally, we think we know who the father is. But we want to make sure before we say definitively that we know who the father is, that the DNA matches up.</s>BANFIELD: Prosecutors have said they believe that the baby was killed because Skylar and her mother were obsessed with appearances and how it might look to the outside world if she were pregnant, or God forbid, a teen mom. As for the defense, they still maintain Skylar at just 18 years old is innocent.</s>CHARLES RITTGER, SKYLAR RICHARDSON`S ATTORNEY: I can tell you that Brooke Skylar Richardson did not kill her baby. And I will have more to come as we receive the discovery, which is what the prosecutor claims supports his indictment.</s>BANFIELD: Stefano Dipietrantonio is a reporter for CNN affiliate WXIX, and he joins me live now from Cincinnati. All right, Stef, trial is going to be November 6th, as I understand. But there`s a gag order. And all I can think of when I hear gag order is that this is the kind of story that is sensational and thus gets a lot of headlines and thus is dangerous for anybody who may end up serving on a jury. Is that the thought here?</s>STEFANO DIPIETRANTONIO, WXIX: That`s exactly what`s happening. Of course, the judge wants to ensure that both sides have a fair case here. But ever since we broke this story on July 14th, it was a Friday, this thing started exploding on social media. Then the following Thursday -- it wasn`t bad enough that they carried the corpse of a baby out of the back yard of their house on that Friday. But within just a few days, they were back with dozens of bright orange buckets, like the kinds you get at Home Depot, and collecting samples out of the family fire pit on the side of the house, in several parts of the yard, that`s when I think the gravity really set in for this neighborhood, that there`s so much more happening here that we don`t know. But it`s been exploding on social media for the last few weeks. I think that is what is going to be one of the big players in this case, there`s so much out there, that can`t be suppressed because it`s been out there for weeks now. Also, one of the key factors in this case is, the prosecution right now, unless we hear more from the forensic anthropologist that`s looking at all the DNA samples they collected from the yard, but right now, it`s going to be incumbent upon them to try and prove medically how this baby girl, who was full term, by the way, 38 to 40 weeks we`re told, how this baby girl died. It cannot medically be proven right now how the child died because of the condition the corpse was in. I did ask the Warren County coroner in an interview we aired, was the baby intact when we saw the chief investigator carrying it out of the grave? And he said, well, I can tell you the sex of that baby, it was fully intact. I said, no, I heard other things. Were the baby`s arms and legs and other parts attached? Was it fully intact? He didn`t say yes or no. But his answer was, why would we have a forensic anthropologist on the case right now? I think there`s a lot coming in the court that we don`t know.</s>BANFIELD: That`s just so sad. We were just talking about this brand-new little baby, again, the hardest job is just to learn to breathe. Hold your thoughts for a minute there, Stef. I want to bring in Michelle DuPre, a forensic pathologist and a medical examiner. She joins me from Columbia, South Carolina. Dr. DuPre, they have said that they know, that the authorities know this baby was alive for a few hours. Can you help me sort through how on earth they could have that information, because you just heard Stef telling us the condition of that baby, buried for two months and burned. How could they know that?</s>MICHELLE DUPRE, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST AND MEDICAL EXAMINER: There would be a couple of things to look at, Ashleigh. One of them is, the body might not be totally decomposed. There may be still some internal organs left. We would do microscopic examination of those, in particular the lung tissue, and that would certainly tell us if the baby ever breathed before. And then there are a few other tests we might also be able to do, just looking at the body for injuries and things of that nature.</s>BANFIELD: You can tell if the baby breathed just by getting a sample of the decomposed organ? Honestly?</s>DUPRE: If it`s not too badly decomposed, looking at the lung tissue, yes. Because as you know, when a baby takes a breath, the lungs expand. Once those lungs have expanded, they do not collapse again. So if there is enough viable lung tissue, and there may be, we may be able to tell that microscopically.</s>BANFIELD: OK. Just quickly, Stef, I only have about 10 seconds left. What`s the story on the father? Are they going to tell us who the father is? Do they actually know? Did he know?</s>DIPIETRANTONIO: That was news to us today, in fact. We have heard that -- and this is all just what we have heard from people who know the family, they have said that the current boyfriend is not the father of this baby girl. But we are not sure if it`s between one or two others who it may be at this time. We`re still trying to dig in and find that out for ourselves.</s>BANFIELD: That`s difficult. Stefano, thank you. Michelle, thank you as well. I want to take you to Missouri right now where an autistic girl who loves animals goes missing. And unidentified remains are then found. Recent discovery has the community searching for answers.