The mother of Geauga’s Child, the newborn baby boy born thrown in a garbage bag in March 1993, tossed in a wooded area on Sidley Road in Thompson Township and left to die, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for killing her infant son.
The mother of Geauga’s Child, the newborn baby boy thrown into a garbage bag in March 1993, tossed into a wooded area on Sidley Road in Thompson Township and left to die, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for killing her infant son.
A jury found Gail M. Ritchey, 52, of Euclid, guilty April 4 of murder — she was found not guilty of aggravated murder — for the 1993 death of her newborn son.
On Tuesday, she appeared before Geauga County Court of Common Pleas Judge David M. Ondrey for sentencing via video conference from the county jail. Ritchey had requested the sentencing proceed remotely due to complications from COVID-19. Her lawyers, Steven Bradley and Mark Marein, were present in the courtroom.
Bradley told Ondrey that heeding her attorney’s advice, Ritchey would not be making an allocution statement to the court — a formal opportunity to address the court and express remorse and explain personal circumstances that might be considered in sentencing — because she intends to exercise her appellate rights.
Acknowledging Ondrey had little discretion in sentencing, Bradley said the defense did file a comprehensive sentencing memorandum addressing some matters of law and providing some additional details of Ritchey’s life, all of which would supplement the court’s pre-sentence investigation report.
“Attached to that pre-sentence report is some 20 or so letters from people that have known Gail through all facets of her life for, in many instances, decades. And they all have taken the opportunity to describe their perception of Gail as they know her to be, in their own unique way,” Bradley said. “What you can see certainly is a consistent theme, that she certainly throughout her entire life, and the 30 years since this tragic incident, she’s led an exemplary life, as a mother, as a wife, as friends, co-workers — she’s been exemplary.”
Bradley asked Pastor Gene McAfee of Faith United Church of Christ in Richmond Heights to read a statement into the record. He said McAfee’s words were representative of all the letters submitted to the court.
McAfee told Ondrey he has known Ritchey and her husband, Mark, for more than 18 years. Her three children attended vacation bible school, at which Ritchey volunteered. McAfee said he attended all three children’s graduation parties as well as her son’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor.
“In short, the Ritchey family have been friends of my church for the entire time of my pastorate,” McAfee said. “In that time, and in those various settings, I always found Gail to be a kind, loving, patient and understanding mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and friend. I saw these traits in her consistently and abundantly. Were I ever to find myself in any distress, and needed someone to turn to, I wouldn’t hesitate to turn to Gail and Mark.”
He added, “Deeply religious, Gail has sought to conduct her life according to the dictates of her genuine Christian faith. And she and Mark raised their children with the best values they could find and pass on.”
McAfee said he hoped his words showed the court Ritchey’s real character, as she has been for decades, “not the frightened and confused young woman who made a dreadfully wrong decision, but the responsible adult whom society would lose should she be sentenced to prison.”
“Gail has also been a victim of her wrongdoing for nearly three decades, and she will bear the burden of what she did for the rest of her life,” he added. “I, therefore, respectfully, ask you to exercise whatever judicial leniency the law allows, as you pass judgment on Mrs. Gail Ritchey.”
Geauga County Assistant Prosecutor Nick Burling said nothing said in support of Ritchey excuses her terrible crime, adding she admitted this was the second time she had disposed of a newborn child.
He also noted Ritchey was able to lead a good life only because she avoided being discovered for 26 years.
“In a sense, she’s kind of been living on borrowed time,” said Burling. “Ultimately here, she has been found guilty and the law, as everyone has acknowledged, imposes a mandatory indefinite sentence of 15 years to life.”
He added there is an additional sentencing requirement that Ritchey would have to register as a violent offender upon any release from prison.
‘Instead of protecting him, you threw him away.’
Ondrey said the case of Geauga’s Child was unique and difficult for everyone involved. He told Ritchey he had no discretion under the law in imposing her sentence.
“The sentence must be life imprisonment with the possibility of parole in 15 years,” he said, but before pronouncing her sentence, Ondrey said he wanted to make some comments.
“There are likely many members of the Geauga County community who desire the court to admonish you in some fashion, regardless of my having no discretion in imposing the sentence,” Ondrey said.
The judge said Ritchey’s crime affected many people in the county, particularly in the Thompson Township area, many of whom raised funds and arranged for a proper burial for the newborn boy, and named him “Geauga’s Child” because no one knew who he was or where he came from.
As such, Ondrey said the community was entitled to something more than the mere pronouncement of a sentence. So he made the following statement:
“First and foremost, regardless of your age when this crime occurred, regardless of your sense of isolation from family and friends, regardless of your fear of losing your boyfriend — now husband, Mark — regardless of your father’s probable condemnation of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the choice you made in February 1993 was a terrible one. It’s almost indescribable in its sheer awfulness.
“Unable to face and address your own problems and the unwanted consequences your pregnancy might cause, in my opinion, you took the easy way out. You coldly and efficiently eliminated your problem by disposing of the only one who couldn’t defend himself. He couldn’t yell at you or berate you like you feared your father would. He couldn’t leave you or break your heart like your boyfriend might. So, instead, you threw your newborn baby into the garbage bag to make your troubles disappear. You threw that bag into the woods and you believed, you hoped no one would ever know.
“But as we know now, Geauga’s Child was a real infant, a real little boy. Sadly, we saw his sweet little face in the autopsy photos. I’ve been privileged to greet nine new infant grandchildren of my own over just the last six years, and Geauga’s Child looked just like all of them when asleep. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, he didn’t deserve to be tossed into the bag, he didn’t deserve to be left alone in the woods to be mutilated by animals and dragged into an icy, muddy, dirty road.”
The judge told Ritchey he saw her tears during the trial when she looked up at her newborn son’s face.
“I believe they were real,” he said. “He was real and you had let him down. Instead of protecting him, you threw him away.”
The judge also said he could not forget that Ritchey confessed, when she was arrested in 2019, to having done the same thing to a “prior, helpless infant.”
“Threw that one in a bag immediately upon birth, the bag then immediately thrown away in a field,” said Ondrey. “Almost identical conduct to what you did to Geauga’s Child in February 1993.”
He added, “So I truly struggle to accept the explanation that you were young and afraid, and alone. Maybe the first time those factors might explain your conduct, but not the second time. I believe you knew exactly how you could solve your problem with an unwanted pregnancy when Geauga’s Child came along because you had done it before. I believe you probably were afraid and alone, but you were also experienced in dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. You thought you had a solution, so as long as you didn’t seek help, didn’t tell Mark, didn’t tell your parents, you could make it go away.”
Ondrey said calling Ritchey a “monster” who deserves life in prison would not be an unfair exaggeration.
“There are, according to you, two little infants that have been tossed away because you couldn’t face your problems and fears as a young woman, and find a proper solution. That is, indeed, monstrous behavior and you, therefore, deserve this long prison sentence,” the judge said, also acknowledging Ritchey has led a respectable and gracious life, raised children, helped others and volunteered in the 29 years since Geauga’s Child’s death.
“So I can’t rationalize these two Gail Ritcheys, I won’t even try. What I know is this — your wrongful efforts to conceal what happened in February 1993 did buy you 29 years of normal life, where you got the chance to get married, raise children and do some good works,” said Ondrey. “But, ultimately, you gained that time on the back of a helpless infant whose body you concealed in the woods. Ironically, Geauga’s Child did more for you than you ever did for him probably.”
According to prosecutors, Ondrey referred to February 1993 because Ritchey made a statement in her pre-sentence investigation report that she gave birth in late February 1993. However, prosecutors maintain the child was born and disposed of in late March 1993.
Ritchey was arrested in June 2019 after DNA collected from blood and tissue samples from Geauga’s Child eventually led Geauga County Sheriff’s Office detectives to the doorstep of her Euclid home.
For nearly three decades, sheriff’s deputies followed up on hundreds of leads and conducted dozens of interviews in the case, but made no arrests. However, authorities were electrified in April 2018 when a DNA search was used to nab the Golden State Killer, a California man accused of a series of decades-old rapes and murders. Crime-scene DNA samples were uploaded in GEDmatch, a free public online database where hobbyists share their data from consumer DNA testing companies such as 23andMe, FamilySearch.org, MyHeritage.com, FindMyPast.com and Ancestry.com to find relatives with shared DNA and to reverse-engineer their family tree.
Inspired by this new crime-fighting tool, sheriff’s office Det. Don Seamon uploaded DNA collected from blood and tissue samples from Geauga’s Child that had been stored all these years into an online database in an effort to identify both the child and the circumstances surrounding its death. The initial results identified a third or fourth cousin who resided in Warren whose DNA kit was submitted by a family member who was a resident of Nebraska. Eventually, the trail traced their DNA to Ritchey.
Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand said in 2019 the case was the 51st in the nation solved using this DNA investigative tool.
