Geauga Maple Leaf
In March of 1993, two papergirls in a small Ohio town named Geauga County found a tiny newborn boy on the side of a dirt road.
The baby boy – who was sadly deceased – still had his umbilical cord attached and had been crudely wrapped in a garbage bag.
A coroner later found the baby had been born alive, but there was no way of telling if he was dead at the time he was dumped.
With no-one claiming the poor child’s body, the child was unofficially adopted into the township and was sweetly named ‘Geauga’s Child’, even having it printed on his headstone.
‘I always think about him,’ one of the girls who found him, Cheryl Jenkins, told Cleveland19News last week. ‘I’ve never forgotten that day. I mean, it’s burned in my memory.’
For 26 years, townspeople visited the grave of ‘Geauga’s Child’ and paid their respects.
Police investigators even placed a hidden camera in the hope they could find the child’s mother or father. But the case grew cold.
As forensic science advanced, police decided to use DNA testing to try and locate a familial match for the child, using blood and tissue samples taken in 1993.
Using an online database, investigators were led to 49-year-old receptionist Gail Eastwood-Ritchey, who was married with three children and lived in Cleveland.
Last Thursday, Eastwood-Ritchey was officially charged with one count of aggravated murder and another count of murder.
‘At that time, she admitted that she had birthed a child, placed him in a trash bag and left him in a wooded area,’ Geauga County sheriff Scott Hildenbrand said.
‘Her statement was that she hid the pregnancy and that nobody knew she was pregnant.’
According to the county sheriff, Eastwood-Ritchey also allegedly admitted to disposing of another newborn baby in 1991.
The father’s child is believed to be her current husband.
Eastwood-Ritchey appeared in court on Monday and plead guilty to the charges. If convicted, she may face a life sentence.
The case is eerily similar to Australian woman Keli Lane, who was found guilty in 2010 of murdering her baby daughter Tegan in 1996.
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