Pregnancy Denial Killer Caught 26 Years After Gruesome Murder | Gail Eastwood-Ritchey Case Analysis

this is Dr Grande today's question is can I analyze the case of Gail Eastwood Richie just a reminder I'm not diagnosing by this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon I'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video first I'll look at the background of this case including the timeline of the crime then offer my analysis Gail Eastwood Richie was born sometime around 1970 and lived in Euclid Ohio this is just Northeast of Cleveland during the summer of 1992 when Gail was 22 years old she lived with her parents and her younger sister and worked full time as a nanny she had a boyfriend named Mark Richie in the fall of 1992 Gail realized that she was pregnant one day in March of 1993 when Gail was caring for children in her employer's home she gave birth to a baby boy she claimed that the baby was stillborn Gail placed the baby who had the umbilical cord still attached in a garbage bag she placed the garbage bag in the trunk of her car Gail never called the authorities and she never told anybody about what she did it appears as though no one knew she was pregnant several days later Gail drove to a weekend retreat in a rural camping area in Geauga County Ohio this is about 45 minutes east of Cleveland Gail was with a group of girls from her church when she was there Gail dumped the bag containing the baby's body about 600 feet into the woods under a tree not long after this on March 25 1993 two women were driving along sidley Road in Geauga County delivering newspapers in a pickup truck when they saw what appeared to be a doll on the side of the road the women turned around to investigate and realized that what they saw was a dead infant no one knew it at the time but the women had discovered Gail's son they immediately notified the authorities here's what the police found during their investigation the infant had originally been in a garbage bag animals had dragged the infant to the road and severely damaged his body missing from his body was one arm and one leg the infant had been born one to three days before being discovered and according to a forensic pathologist had taken at least one breath there was no way to determine how the infant died no one saw the child being left in the woods and no one knew who the mother was the police desperately tried to solve the case but they didn't have much to go on the discovery of the child was shocking to the local community people raised money and paid for his funeral 150 people attended Gail's son was referred to as geoga's child the police video recorded the funeral hoping to generate more leads they also placed a camera in the graveyard pointed at the tombstone hoping that a grieving mother may want to visit her Lost Child no such grieving mother ever appeared the police became so desperate they even resorted to nonsense they asked a self-proclaimed psychic to render an opinion she offered an astounding profile of the alleged perpetrator the perpetrator had a unique personality was no longer with the father of the child and was afraid of being arrested as if it had never occurred to anyone that a person who committed a crime would be afraid of being arrested there is the sense that the psychic was just one step away from making other revolutionary statements like the perpetrator was a human being probably lived in Ohio and had sex at some point in her life what would the police do without psychics to crack open these cold cases as the psychics offered generic and useless observations Gail moved on with her life as if nothing happened she married the father of her son in 1994 and went on to have three more children Gail worked as a receptionist at a dance school in Mayfield Ohio it appeared as though the case would never be solved Gale had escaped responsibility the police of course had the DNA of giaga's child but there was nothing they could do with it at the time without having some idea of who the mother was 25 years later in 2018 a detective decided to take advantage of a relatively new methodology called genetic genealogy a tactic which was famously used to solve the Golden State killer case using the DNA of giaga's child the initial Trace went back to the boy's great great grandparents who were born in the early 1800s 1400 possible relatives were revealed the police were able to narrow down that number by asking for voluntary DNA samples and requesting that people make their DNA on various genealogy websites available for comparison the police interviewed people from all over the world they noticed that many of the relatives on the Father's Side had been born in Lebanon eventually the police were able to figure out that the boy was the grandchild of one of ten siblings they spoke to a man in Lyndhurst Ohio who mentioned that one of his daughters had a romantic partner from Lebanon this led the police to Gail Eastwood Richie they confronted her at her house on May 21 2019 a camera hidden in a coffee cup was used to record her reaction to the confrontation investigators asked her if she knew what the visit was about she said it was quote about a baby that was left unquote not long after this Gail admitted that she had dumped a child back in 1993 the police interviewed her at a local police station here is the story that she supplied to investigators Gail said that when she was working as a nanny she noticed one day that she wasn't feeling well not long after this she gave birth on a toilet she didn't know what to do so she put the baby in a garbage bag El said that she never looked at it using the pronoun it to refer to her son she once again referred to her son as it when she said I don't remember it making any noise Gail said that she put the baby in her trunk she left the child in the trunk for several days eventually she dropped the baby in the woods after driving to the camp claimed that she did not recall the baby crying and was not sure if the child was alive the police asked Gail if she had ever done this before Gail admitted to doing the same thing to another baby in 1990 or 1991 so this was two or three years before the incident with giaga's child Gail said that she gave birth to a baby put the baby in a garbage bag and dumped the bag in a field along Brush Avenue in Euclid Ohio she was uncertain of the father's identity kale drew a map for investigators but they were unable to locate a body the police did not pursue charges for this case but they did pursue charges for the 1993 death of giaga's child Gail was charged with aggravated murder and murder other charges normally would have been applicable but the statute of limitations had expired Gail was offered a plea bargain she could plead guilty to manslaughter and receive a sentence ranging from probation up to 11 years in prison considering the circumstances of the case and what Gail had admitted to it was an amazing deal but Gail declined she decided to take her chances at trial her admission about the incident in 1990 or 1991 was not allowed to be used against her in the trial in May 2022 Gail Eastwood Richie was found not guilty of aggravated murder but guilty of murder the jury did not think she acted with premeditation but they did think that she killed her son Gail did not make any statement at her sentencing her defense called only one witness a pastor Gill was supposed to be an upstanding member of the community who was well liked one would think that more than one person would have spoken on her behalf Gail was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years now moving to my analysis Gail Eastwood Ritchie continues to maintain her innocence she has a few supporters who believe that the state did not proof Gale's guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt this brings me to the question was Gail actually guilty of murder let's take a look at the evidence both for and against the idea that Gail was guilty of murder starting with the inculpatory factors Gail knew that she was pregnant months prior to giving birth yet did nothing at all to prepare she didn't talk to a physician she didn't tell family members or friends Gail took no steps whatsoever that indicated she was going to care for her child only one in 160 pregnancies in the United States results in a stillbirth based on this statistic it is reasonable to believe that Gail's son was born alive a forensic pathologist concluded that the lung cells from gioga's Child were partially expanded indicating that the child was alive when he was born Gail worked diligently to dispose of her son's body this supports the idea that she had consciousness of guilt Gail knew that what she was doing was wrong and was trying to conceal the wrong doing Gail placed her son in a garbage bag if he was alive at that time he would have been suffocated through this action moving to the exculpatory factors Gail claimed that her son did not move and did not make any sound a forensic pathologist for the defense testified that he could not determine one way or the other if Gail's son was alive at Birth he argued that the expansion of lung tissue did not necessarily indicate the boy was alive lung tissue can expand without air and air can get into lungs in ways other than respiration including through childbirth decomposition and by animals standing on a person's chest if Gail's son was alive when he was born it is possible that she accidentally killed him maybe she thought that her son was stillborn but he wasn't she placed him in the bag and suffocated him but she did not have a criminal State of Mind Gail did not intend to kill him when considering all the evidence do I think that Gail was guilty of murder yes in my opinion the jury made the right call Gail was guilty of murder there is no reasonable doubt that Gail's son was born alive and there is no reasonable doubt that her actions caused his death when factoring in her admission that she had been involved in a previous incident any doubt that may have been there was removed but of course as I mentioned the jury did not have access to that information in my opinion Gail was probably guilty of aggravated murder and reality I think the murder was premeditated but I agree with the jury that she was not guilty of aggravated murder Beyond A Reasonable Doubt what do I think happen in this case this is just a theory my opinion one of Gail's defense attorneys argued that Gail could not accept that she was pregnant she was unable to process this information and she never told anyone the attorney claimed that Gail's father did not make Gail feel loved her father allegedly said something to the effect that no daughter of his would have a child out of wedlock during the trial Gail did not show much in the way of emotions although she did cry a little when the autopsy photos were being shown to the jury there is this sense that Gail was cold remorseless and did not have empathy she didn't think much of her son it was almost like he was just an object to her Gail tried to act as if her pregnancy took her by surprise she didn't really know what was happening she didn't feel well and before she knew it she gave birth this doesn't fit with her admission that she was aware of her pregnancy months in advance and how would this be possible in light of her admission about what she did to her first child one could argue that the evidence in this case points to a construct called denial of pregnancy this is an unusual thought process that occurs in about a quarter of one percent of deliveries most women who deny pregnancy also conceal the pregnancy which would explain why no one knew that Gail was pregnant she actively concealed it from others there are three types of denial of pregnancy pervasive affective and psychotic the most common type is effective accounting for about 50 percent of the cases with this type of denial only the emotional component of pregnancy is denied the woman continues to think feel and behave as if she was not pregnant life goes on and she does not emotionally invest in the pregnancy the woman does however realize that she is pregnant this affective type lines up well with Gail's Behavior she admitted to knowing that she was pregnant but she did not have the emotions that would be expected women who experience pregnancy denial tend to be young and single they often have trouble with employment and a lower level of Education affective denial is strongly associated with having previous pregnancies Gail had been pregnant one time years before the murder and may have murdered that child as well based on her admission to the police there are many other characteristics of pregnancy denial that align with Gale's situation for example denial is associated with unassisted deliveries twenty percent of denial cases involve giving birth into toilets and it is associated with a dramatic increase in the risk of the child dying especially within the first 24 hours following birth what mental health characteristics are associated with pregnancy denial only 23 percent of women with pregnancy denial report a mental health history the condition is not closely associated with mental disorders or trauma this makes pregnancy denial fairly difficult to detect a woman who has it often conceals her pregnancy and may not have any obvious mental health symptoms when the behavior results in Murder the case will sometimes go unsolved because nobody was aware that there was a murder victim if there is no investigation there will be no prosecution Gail could have easily escaped the consequences of her behavior if she had simply disposed of the body more carefully if Gail had denial of pregnancy it would not have affected her level of guilt Gail knew that when she killed her son she was committing murder she understood the difference between right and wrong when Gail comes up for parole one can only hope that the parole board members will keep the word Denial in the Forefront of their minds those are my thoughts in the case of Gail Eastwood Ritchie please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 106,718

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Id: bq6b_s_UiZs

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2023