Police Say Teen Mom's Buried Infant Was Alive at Birth

An 18-year-old Ohio woman has been charged with reckless homicide after investigators say they found the remains of her newborn baby buried outside her family home earlier this month. On July 14, acting on a tip from a doctor's office, police say they found the body of Brooke Skylar Richardson's baby in a backyard in Carlisle, Ohio, about 40 miles north of Cincinnati. One week later, on July 21, the Warren County prosecutor charged Richardson with homicide based on evidence that her infant "was born alive and was not a stillborn baby," the Dayton Daily News reports. Investigators believe Richardson killed her baby around May 7, though they are still waiting for a final report from the coroner's office on the cause of death.

Police returned to the property July 20 and arrested Richardson. They also searched for additional evidence around that time, including digging near a fire pit in the yard, WDTN reports. At Richardson's arraignment on Friday, the judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for Aug. 1. Richardson had already entered a not-guilty plea, and the judge continued her $15,000 bond. If convicted, the recent high school graduate faces between one to five years in prison. After the arraignment, Richardson's attorney, Charles M. Rittgers, called his client a "very good person." "She didn’t drink. She wasn’t a partier or a smoker," Rittgers said. "By all measures a very good girl who helped children." (More Brooke Skylar Richardson stories.)