Horrific: Pennsylvania mother fakes cancer for sympathy, severely beats 11-month-old daughter during 'week of hell'

Kara Seymour
Levittown Patch
Thu, 11 Feb 2016 11:08 UTC

© Levittown Patch

Ashley Reichard

The Deputy District Attorney told the judge the baby's injuries were "horrific" and the child "could have died."

A Levittown woman who authorities say "severely" beat and abused her 11-month-old baby was sentenced Wednesday to six to 12 years in state prison.Ashley Reichard, 27, also lied about having cancer to get sympathy, the Bucks County District Attorney's office said.

According to information provided by the District Attorney's office, the abuse Reichard imposed on her daughter in 2014 during what the deputy district attorney called a "week of hell" was "among the worst" witnessed by a pediatric child abuse expert who testified in court.

During that week, Reichard admitted to authorities that she had slammed her daughter to the floor six times. She also admitted putting the baby unbuckled into a stroller then "forcefully" tipping her forward so the infant fell face-first onto a cement walkway. She also told authorities she smashed her baby's head into the floor. The baby had burns on her legs, authorities said. Reichard never elaborated on how the burns got there.

Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Schorn told the judge the baby's injuries were "horrific" and the child "could have died." As a result of the abuse, the baby suffered multiple skull fractures, an upper leg fractured in two places, fractures on both sides of her jaw, bruising from blows to her face and lower back, a perforated eardrum, a scratched cornea, and second-degree burns on both thighs, the Bucks County District Attorney said.

Reichard did not seek medical help for the baby until forced by others to do so, authorities said. Reichard pleaded guilty but mentally ill on Oct. 6 to felony aggravated assault. "What you did to the child is, quite frankly, unspeakable," Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. said in court.

According to the District Attorney's office, the child, now two and a half, has fully recovered from her injuries and lives with her father. Dr. Carla Parkin-Joseph, a pediatrician and child-abuse expert, described the baby's abuse as "probably one of the worst cases I've seen in my experience."

Comment: It's possible this woman is a psychopath. In The Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley writes that the psychopath periodically needs to take vacations into filth and degradation.

From The Psychopath - The Mask Of Sanity - Special Research Project of the Quantum Future School:

One very interesting aspect of the psychopath is his "hidden life" that is sometimes not too well hidden. It seems that the psychopath has a regular need to take a "vacation into filth and degradation" the same way normal people may take a vacation to a resort where they enjoy beautiful surroundings and culture. To get a full feeling for this strange "need" of the psychopath - a need that seems to be evidence that "acting human" is very stressful to the psychopath - read more of The Mask of Sanity, chapters 25 and 26.