Tiffin University’s branch of the National Criminal Justice Honor Society, Alpha Phi Sigma, and TU’s Violent Crime Research Fellowship will host a screening of the documentary “Baby Doe” Tuesday, September 29 at 2 p.m. in the TU Marion Center located at 235 Miami St., Tiffin. The event is free and open to the public.
The documentary examines the case of Gail Ritchey, a young woman living in a conservative Christian community in Northeast Ohio in 1993 when she gave birth alone. Believing that the baby was stillborn, Ritchey left the baby in the woods. Nearly 30 years later, now a mother of three, her quiet suburban life is shattered when DNA evidence links her to what the media coined “Geauga’s Child.” Cold case detectives dismissed Ritchey’s claim that the baby was stillborn and arrested her for murder. By then, Ritchey was married to the baby’s father, was a mother of three children and a grandmother. Ritchey told police at the time of her arrest that she didn’t know she was pregnant at the time of the baby’s birth. While speaking with her lawyer in the documentary, she admits she took a positive pregnancy test but has no memory of purchasing it, or what her reaction was to reading the result.
Filmmaker Jessica Earnshaw spent years embedded with Ritchey and her family. She also interviewed law enforcement and a forensic psychologist who explains the condition of pregnancy denial. The result is a documentary that explores the intersection of pregnancy, trauma and mental health as it collides with a criminal justice system. “Baby Doe” moves beyond headlines to reveal the human complexity of Gail’s story, illuminating the societal, emotional and systemic forces that continue to shape cases like hers.
Jessica will be present to discuss the film and will be joined by Rachel Troutman, the former supervisor of the capital case unit at the Ohio Public Defender’s Office and current attorney with the Exoneration Project in Dublin. Troutman represents Ritchey and Emile Weaver (a former student at Muskingum University convicted in 2016 of murdering her newborn baby) in their clemency requests to the Governor. For further information, contact Dr. Lacy Ellis, Dean of the School of Criminal Justice and Social Sciences at EllisLK@tiffin.edu.