Gail Eastwood Ritchey, 51, of Euclid, was found guilty of murder in the March 1993 death of 'Geauga's Child.'
CHARDON, Ohio — A jury has convicted a woman of murder in the death of a newborn child authorities said was dumped in the woods in Ohio almost three decades ago.
Newspaper carriers found the body of the newborn on a rural road in Thompson Township 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.The defendant was identified as the child’s mother after a 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 her.
“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.” “She literally treated him like a piece of garbage,” prosecutors said. “Tossed him in the woods … didn’t even bury him.”“I certainly respect the jury’s verdict, but the state frankly did not have enough evidence to meet their burden of proof,” he said.
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