The parents of a 4-month-old girl killed in January 2007 as seven people traveled cross-country in a van agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges.
Betty Viars, 23, and Cleet Ritchie, 29, will serve 15 years in prison, followed by five years' probation. Both pleaded guilty to reduced charges of involuntary manslaughter, permitting child abuse and obstructing justice.
Cleet Ritchie's brother Scott suffocated 4-month-old Mary Ann Ritchie with a pillow for crying during a drive from Florida to Mansfield, and the infant's parents did nothing to stop him.
Scott Ritchie pleaded guilty in March to an amended charge of murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He was declared mentally retarded, which precluded the death penalty.
Scott Ritchie said that the baby had been crying, and they were tired of the baby crying so Viars told someone to shut the baby up. Scott then took a pillow and suffocated the baby, and then did a slashing motion with his finger.
The murder occurred at night somewhere between Georgia and Washington Court House, Ohio. Four adults and three children were in the van. Mary Ann Ritchie had been placed on the rear bench of the van, alongside a 4-year-old half-sister and 2-year-old half-brother.
She may have been crying because she had not been properly cared for during a three-day trip.
Investigators said both brothers smacked the baby to stop the noise.
Some place in Georgia, after a stop and a break because they were running out of gas, they determined that the baby was going to be suffocated.
A plan was hatched to dump the body in a trash bin at the Wal-Mart at Interstate 71 and Ohio 13, but that idea fizzled. Instead, the four returned to the apartment where the Ritchie brothers and Viars were living and placed an emergency call.
Scott dialed 9-1-1, and Cleet talks, and says we have a child here that's not breathing. Betty comes outside and handsed over the baby
Mansfield rescue squad workers found an infant they could not intubate because her body was in rigor mortis.
Rescue squad staff found the infant had severe urine burns, and her clothing was entirely soaked with urine, with cockroaches in the folds. The baby also had suffered a broken arm, but it was never determined whether the break occurred before or after her death.
Investigators started to make a case after Mary Ann Ritchie's 4-year-old half-sister approached a lab technician. When the technicians came in, the 4-year-old went up and said, flat, 'My sister is dead, and my daddy killed her.'
The half-sister, who may have ridden 200 to 300 miles next to her baby sister's lifeless body, is in the custody of her biological father.
Scott Ritchie's former girlfriend pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and obstructing justice, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Cleet and Scott Ritchie's two sisters each pleaded to felony charges of obstructing justice for helping their brothers evade police for several days. They are on community control probation.
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