Little Miss Perfect?

To what lengths would the teenager go to hide her secret..?

On the night of her high school prom, Brooke Skylar Richardson looked every inch the all-American girl next door.

Wearing a red, fitted, fishtail gown that flattered her slender frame, her long, blonde hair styled in bouncy curls, she put her arm around her boyfriend.

The perfect couple posed for the camera. It was May 2017, and they had their whole lives ahead of them.

But Brooke was hiding a secret behind her smile. The 18-year-old was pregnant.

Yet nobody knew. Not her parents, her friends, or boyfriend.

That was, until two months later.

In July 2017, Brooke tearfully told her gynaecologist she’d given birth to a baby girl just a few days after the prom. She told the doctor she’d delivered the baby in the upstairs bathroom of her family home in Carlisle, Ohio.

Sobbing, Brooke said the baby girl was stillborn and confessed that she’d buried her in the backyard of her parents’ home.

Concerned, the doctor informed the police.

Burnt remains

On 14 July 2017, officers arrived at the Richardsons’ house and told Brooke that they had received a call about a stillborn being buried in the yard.

Brooke burst into tears, telling the police she didn’t want her parents to know about the baby. She led them to a spot in the garden, covered with a planter.

The police noticed a stench of decomposition.

Shortly after, the baby’s remains were found.

But, as experts studied the body, they realised that something wasn’t right.

The baby’s skull looked damaged and the remains seemed to have been burnt.

Brooke was interviewed by the police. When asked if she’d burnt the baby’s remains, she denied it 17 times.

But then she cracked.

‘OK, I torched the baby with a lighter and tried to cremate her,’ she said.

The police charged Brooke with reckless homicide.