Baby Doe
Jessica Earnshaw’s “Baby Doe” moves effortlessly between empathy and uncertainty as it examines the case of Gail. As a young girl in a conservative Christian community in Geauga County, Ohio, Gail Eastwood-Ritchey found herself giving birth unexpectedly. Frightened by the implications of what that might mean for her in her community, she wraps the baby up, and leaves it in the woods. Three decades after the remains are found, she is identified as the mother; when questioned by police, she claims that the baby was stillborn. She is nonetheless charmed with murder, and could face a life imprisonment if found guilty. Is her claim of the baby being stillborn enough to keep her from going to prison? She is not the only person who has found themselves in this situation.
In a way, “Baby Doe” reminds me of the first “Paradise Lost” documentary, about the West Memphis Three. As with the West Memphis Three, Gail’s case feels like a sense of overenthusiastic prosecution, goosed by a conservative morality that paints her- especially her seeming lack of empathy- as an inherently wicked person. Along the way in this film, we come to know Gail’s husband, their adult children, and the religious community that has embraced her, in spite of the headlines. Why is she arrested three decades later? DNA evidence has made it easier to make progress on cold cases like this one- in which the community basically adopted the child once they were found- but how can the case be clear cut after so long?
Earnshaw also shows us other young women who claim they had no idea they were pregnant, and whom discarded their children after birth. Seen through the lens of a post-Roe vs. Wade America, the government’s cases against women like Gail and other women found and tried through the same methodology feels like a way of controlling women, as well as castigating women in the same way earlier generations found them “hysterical.” And yet, Earnshaw often does leave the seeds of doubt in their stories in place- after all, many of these women are being charged after a lifetime was lived. That being said, our empathy remains with them, because most of these women had a great deal to lose had they been discovered as having been pregnant at the time, and who are we to say they are lying? “Baby Doe” challenges us by showing certainty as an answer to tragedy, and the emotional pull of the loss of a child as something even the most confident defense cannot fight against. This is a fascinating film that makes us consider our own conclusions if we are faced with such circumstances.
