Friday, April 1, 2022

Gail Ritchey: Ohio: Bulletin: Accused of killing her newborn son in 1993, her jury trial has begun, with defense attorney - during an opening statement Thursday in the trial of the woman accused of killing and then dumping her newborn son outside Cleveland in 1993 - that she is not guilty of murder because the infant was stillborn..."Defense attorney Steven Bradley in his opening statement disputed a Cuyahoga County coroner’s conclusion the baby was born alive and was breathing when Ritchey gave birth in the bathroom of a Shaker Heights home where she worked as a nanny. Bradley said Ritchey put the newborn in a garbage bag that she put in the trunk of her car. Days later, she drove a group of girls from the church where she was a youth leader to a weekend retreat and left the bag in a wooded area in Geauga County. Bradley said the assistant coroner, who is now deceased, concluded the child was born alive based on three microscope slides of lung tissue that he said showed the infant had drawn a breath. Ritchey never told anyone she was pregnant, Bradley said, and did not realize when she sat down on a toilet at her employers’ home that she was about to give birth. “She was isolated and alone,” Bradley said. “There was no one to confide with. She was alone with a group of people in her world that never saw her as pregnant. Neither did Gail.” The three slides show tiny sacs in the lung called alveoli had inflated, which Bradley said could have been caused by decomposition of the body. Ritchey later married the newborn’s father. They have three adult children."

STORY: "Attorney: Baby was stillborn, mother not guilty of murder, AP News, March 31, 2022.

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "She told investigators at the time of her arrest that she had disposed of another infant’s body two years prior to the birth of her son, authorities said at the time. Bradley said Ritchey would testify at trial."

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GIST: "A defense attorney during an opening statement Thursday in the trial of a woman accused of killing and then dumping her newborn son outside Cleveland in 1993 said his client is not guilty of murder because the infant was stillborn.

Gail Ritchey, 51, faces aggravated murder and murder charges in Geauga County. Newspaper carriers found the body of the newborn on a rural road in March 1993, about a month after the child was born. Authorities have said the infant was dumped in woods in a garbage bag and that animals had mutilated the body and dragged it onto the roadway.


Ritchey was identified as the child’s mother after a Geauga County sheriff’s detective submitted DNA to a public genealogical website, created a family tree of 1,400 relatives and finally narrowed the search to Ritchey, who told investigators it was her baby. She was arrested in June 2019.


Community members paid for a funeral, burial and a headstone marked “Geauga’s Child.”


Defense attorney Steven Bradley in his opening statement disputed a Cuyahoga County coroner’s conclusion the baby was born alive and was breathing when Ritchey gave birth in the bathroom of a Shaker Heights home where she worked as a nanny.


Bradley said Ritchey put the newborn in a garbage bag that she put in the trunk of her car. Days later, she drove a group of girls from the church where she was a youth leader to a weekend retreat and left the bag in a wooded area in Geauga County.


Bradley said the assistant coroner, who is now deceased, concluded the child was born alive based on three microscope slides of lung tissue that he said showed the infant had drawn a breath.


Ritchey never told anyone she was pregnant, Bradley said, and did not realize when she sat down on a toilet at her employers’ home that she was about to give birth.


“She was isolated and alone,” Bradley said. “There was no one to confide with. She was alone with a group of people in her world that never saw her as pregnant. Neither did Gail.”


The three slides show tiny sacs in the lung called alveoli had inflated, which Bradley said could have been caused by decomposition of the body.


Ritchey later married the newborn’s father. They have three adult children.


She told investigators at the time of her arrest that she had disposed of another infant’s body two years prior to the birth of her son, authorities said at the time.


Bradley said Ritchey would testify at trial."


The entire story can be read at: 

https://apnews.com/article/ohio-arrests-cleveland-1908b882a295ce88406211c642e7edd3

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;




SEE BREAKDOWN OF  SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG,  AT THE LINK BELOW:  HL:




FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions.   They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;