What’s your deepest, darkest secret and what would you do to protect it? This girl was so desperate to protect her secret that she did something so horrible that shocked the entire community. Let’s dive in. Jessica Coleman was the envy of all girls her age. She was pretty popular and a star athlete at her school.
She was also very smart and got good grades in class. But then she did something that she would regret for the rest of her life. During her freshman year in high school, Jessica started going out with a guy called Tom Trulson. Tom was a senior and a popular basketball star, so Jessica felt flattered that he would even ask her out. Things got really serious between these two, and just a few months into the relationship, Jessica missed her periods.
At first, it didn’t seem like such a big deal since she was used to having an irregular cycle. But by the fifth month, Jessica began to worry. She and Tom bought a pregnancy test at the drugstore and her worst fear was confirmed. She was pregnant at only 15. Jessica was crushed.
She felt like her whole world had stopped. What was she going to do now? What would happen to her future? Her parents would be devastated. Everyone in school would talk about her.
She felt like she was living in a bad dream and could not wake up. She wanted so badly for the test to be wrong and thought that maybe if she ignored it, it would go away. But of course it didn’t and she and Tom had to find a way to deal with it. They decided they were going to keep it a secret as long as possible. They even went to extra lengths and did some really desperate things to ensure that no one noticed anything with the stand in my stomach to prevent it from showing at all.
And I lived in such a deep denial that whole entire time and the two actually got away with it. They managed to fool everyone, including their teachers, friends, and parents. No one suspected anything as the two teenagers went about their days. Quite normally, Jessica attended all her classes, cheerleading practices, played soccer, and even managed to score seven points at a basketball game. Yes, I can hear some of you asking how is that even possible?
But it happens. Some women just don’t change much when pregnant. This usually happens if the woman is physically fit and has strong abdominal muscles and also if the baby is just small. Jessica also had an eating disorder at the time, so she didn’t gain any weight. In February 1999, Jessica was having a normal day in school when she suddenly started experiencing labor pain.
She called her mom and told her she was having some menstrual cramps. Her mom dropped her off at home and then returned to work asking if she would be okay. My cramps started getting a lot worse after being checked out a few times by my mom felt like I needed to use the restroom, and when I went to push it’s as if he fell out of the toilet. Jessica and her new baby boy were both in bad shape. She lost a lot of and could barely walk to her bedroom.
While trying to walk from the bathroom, she collapsed and fell on her newborn. I had blacked out, I believe, from losing so much. By the time that I came to and I looked down, he was underneath me. In an interview with Oprah, Jessica said that she tried to do everything she could to help the newborn. She cleaned him up and cut the umbilical cord and tied it with her hair Barrett.
All this while, she claimed the newborn did not move or cry and that she could not tell whether he was dead or alive. Later, she went back to the bathroom and cleaned it up. By that time, her mother and sisters were already home and were calling her down to dinner. She left her newborn on the floor inside her closet and joined her family for dinner. Now this is where things get really dark.
When Jessica returned to her room, she took a kitchen knife with her and her newborn in the chest. She would later claim that she did it to take away his pain, but some people believe that she just wanted to get rid of him. I spoke in the chest because I thought I was taking away his pain. That just doesn’t make sense. If she thought that her son was stillborn Oprah asked her why she felt the need to do that.
She then said that she was confused at the time and didn’t know what she was doing. Jessica then called her boyfriend, Tom, and asked him to come over to her house. However, Tom was in College at that time and could not make it until the next day. Jessica didn’t want to raise any suspicion, and so the next day she woke up early and went to school as normal. Tom came later that evening, as he had promised, and Jessica showed him the newborn’s body, which she had put in a duffel bag.
Then Tom took the bag and went and threw it in a flooded quarry a few miles from Jessica’s home. We were never going to tell anyone. It had gone so terribly wrong that by this point in time, coming forward wasn’t an option anymore. Six months later, the small community of Columbus Station in Ohio was in shock when a diver found the body of the newborn boy stuffed in a duffel bag with rocks in it. What kind of monster could do such a horrible thing?
Community members vowed not to rest until they knew who among them would be capable of such a cold and despicable thing. They held a Memorial funeral service for the boy, whom they named Baby Boy Hope. Lorraine County Sheriff Detective Carl Yost worked overtime to find the cold blooded killer. He even had an image in mind of what the killer looked like. I think we all wanted to think there was some kind of monster behind this, because who else would do this Besides the monster?
But for six years, the case remained a mystery. Meanwhile, Jessica and Tom broke up and went on to live separate lives away from each other. Tom graduated from College and became a teacher while Jessica finished high school and went off to College. But as much as Jessica tried to move on with her life, the images of what she had done to her son continued to haunt her. She was drinking a lot, using narcotics, and even got a DUI.
Over the last few years, I started, like, having many nervous breakdowns. I guess you could call it just anything would trigger it. During this period, she met a guy named Matt McKenzie and started going out with him. The relationship got serious, and Matt started talking about marriage. One day, Jessica and Matt were having drinks at a local bar and were talking about their future together when Jessica started having a nervous breakdown.
She started crying and told Matt everything she had done. Unknowingly to them, someone had happened to overhear their conversation and reported her to the Sheriff. Soon, both Jessica and Tom were brought in for questioning, and they confessed everything. Tom pleaded guilty to obstruction and abuse of a human corpse. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released early after only serving 13 months, despite having been 15 when she committed the crime.
Jessica was tried as an adult and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangerment of a minor. She got the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter instead of first degree homicide because the coroner could not determine what really caused the boy’s death. She was later sentenced to six years in state prison. This case is just insane. And the craziest part?
It’s not even the only one. Just a few years ago in 2017, another high school cheerleader by the name of Brooke Skylar Richardson secretly gave birth at her home in Ohio and then buried her daughter in her backyard. Just like Jessica, Brooke managed to fool everyone, including her parents. She just looked normal throughout her pregnancy. This is a picture that was taken on her prom night, and she gave birth two days later in the middle of the night.
So the girl just went through probably the most excruciating pain in the world, silently so no one will hear her. How crazy is that? She later claimed that her daughter was stillborn and that’s why no one heard her crying. Brooke was later charged with involuntary manslaughter, endangering a minor, and abuse of a corpse. She was not guilty of all serious charges and was released after only having spent seven days in jail.
These two girls were willing to go to extreme lengths just to hide their mistakes. They made decisions that not only risked their lives but also made the situation even more horrible. I get that they were desperate, but what they did was just on another level. Sadly, these cases are very common and that’s why laws such as the safe haven laws, also called baby Moses laws have been introduced to help protect these poor babies. The laws allow a mother of a newborn to unanimously leave their unwanted newborn baby in a safe place such as a hospital, police station or fire station without having to worry that they would go to jail.
Unfortunately, even with such laws in place, people still abandon their young ones in unsafe places or even worse, get rid of them. If you or anyone you know is going through a similar situation, remember that there’s a better solution that does not get you in trouble.
