Baby Doe

Baby Doe is a 2025/2026 documentary directed by Jessica Earnshaw (known for Jacinta), with Sarah Paulson as executive producer, released theatrically by Fourth Act Film on July 10, 2026 following its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.

In 1993, Gail Ritchey, then 22 and living in a conservative Christian community in rural Ohio, gave birth alone and abandoned her newborn in the woods. The infant's body was discovered shortly after, becoming known locally as 'Geauga's Child,' but the case went unsolved for decades. In 2019, DNA evidence finally identified Ritchey as the mother, and she was arrested and charged with murder. By this point she was a suburban middle-aged woman, married to the child's biological father, with three grown children.

Earnshaw's camera follows Ritchey through the legal proceedings with no dramatic recreations, relying instead on interviews with attorneys, family members, and friends. A forensic psychologist provides crucial context by explaining pregnancy denial — a recognized psychological condition in which a woman does not consciously register that she is pregnant — framing Ritchey's account of believing the baby was stillborn within a clinical framework. Archival police footage shows Ritchey calmly describing 'a baby that was left.' A particularly jarring disclosure emerges during the film: Ritchey acknowledges that two years before the 1993 incident she had abandoned another infant in similar circumstances. Ritchey ultimately receives a life sentence. The judge, delivering the verdict, expresses difficulty reconciling 'two Gail Ritcheys' — the devoted mother her family knows and the woman whose actions led to an infant's death in the woods.

The documentary situates the case within broader questions about women's reproductive health, the criminal justice system's treatment of pregnancy denial, and the societal and religious pressures that bear on young women facing unplanned pregnancies. It functions as a work of advocacy, inviting empathy while deliberately leaving many moral questions unresolved.

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDb, Yahoo Entertainment review, Rotten Tomatoes