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Ashley Banfield
Hi everybody, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop dead Serious. Every once in a while a case lands on my desk and it is so brutal and unimaginably dark that I have to read it twice just to make sure that it really is what is in front of me that I didn't misunderstand something. And the case in this episode is one of those a 22 year old woman in Michigan named Rebecca park. She vanished on November 3rd. She was 38 weeks pregnant. So she was only two weeks away from her delivery date, right? Give or take. But on November 25, that's three weeks and one day later she was found dead. She was dead. Her body was in a national forest. That's where they found her. They also found that she'd been stabbed to death and that her unborn baby had been cut out of her womb.
That's awful, right? But what was even more perplexing and horrifying was that the baby was nowhere to be found. So there's Rebecca. She's dead, stabbed, and she's mutilated. The baby's gone.
I don't know how the police have arrived at stating that the baby's dead because they don't have the baby. But they're saying it. They state, the baby's dead, Rebecca's dead, baby's dead. And then if things couldn't get worse, they do. They arrested Rebecca's own birth mother and her stepfather. Now, they were absent for most of Rebecca's life, but they reconnected with Rebecca back in 2021. Their names are Courtney and Bradley Bartholomew. And right now, they are both charged with, among other things, first degree murder, felony murder, torture, conspiracy to torture, assault of a pregnant woman, and unlawful imprisonment. And if you think about those charges, I get it. First degree murder, felony murder. I get all that. The torture part, that's where I stopped and had to think. Because charging someone with torture and conspiracy to torture likely means that they cut that baby out of Rebecca's body while she was still alive. That's the torture part. I mean, what other forensic evidence do they have about Rebecca's body? That they just wanted to torture her for a while, and then eventually she's dead and they took the baby? I think it's more likely when you have a baby cut from the womb, that most people don't want to kill you first. They want to get the baby first. That's typically what happens. And. And yeah, I have covered these cases before. Sadly, more than I can count. Shockingly, more than I can count. People do this. People literally steal babies from inside other people. They do it. A prosecutor called this couple that they arrested, and I will quote, evil personified. Yeah, evil personified. Their words. And this is what the prosecutors say. They say that this couple, the Bartholomews, allegedly, they lured their daughter to their home, but then they put her in a truck and that they drove her into the woods and, quote, tortured Rebecca park in an attempt to remove the unborn infant, resulting in the death of both.
I want to know what they've got. I want to know what forensic evidence they've got from the forest, from the body, the blood spatter patterns that may be there or not there. You're gonna find out why I say that in a moment. Cause there's some evidence that maybe she didn't die where they found Her.
But how did they learn that the baby was cut out of her while alive? And how did they learn that the baby's dead? Cause they don't have the baby. But when this deed, this horrifying, macabre deed was done, but while it was still a secret, that birth mom, Courtney Bartholomew, she spoke to a true crime podcaster named Stephanie Pratt. And she told Stephanie that she had planned to visit her daughter and give her daughter some money that she'd made from selling some land. Boy, that's nice, isn't it? What a nice lady. In hindsight, though, if you think about it, that may have actually been part of the alleged plot to lure this victim to her death.
Rebecca Park (voicemail)
Under her breath, mom, you're gonna have the 2,000, right? I said, yeah. And she's like, okay. And that was all she said.
Ashley Banfield
The podcaster, Stephanie Pratt, also, she got her hands on a voicemail from the victim herself, which was left right around the time of her disappearance. So if you think about that, it means from the grave, Rebecca Park's voice can be heard telling a friend about her biological mother's plan to take her out for milkshakes and give her some money. Again, what a nice lady. I want you to listen closely as you hear Rebecca park talking to a friend about what this wonderful biological mother of hers has planned.
Rebecca Park (voicemail)
Yeah, I'm not trying to just make it all about money, and I really don't give. But I told her that.
So today she's supposed to actually give me the actual. But we'll see how that goes. And which means money wise and go out for shakes.
So we'll see.
Ashley Banfield
But now we know how that went, don't we? After Rebecca park was found slaughtered, that biological mother of hers, Courtney Bartholomew, spoke again to Stephanie Pratt, the podcaster. But this time, she had a whole new slew of things to say. This time, she decided it was appropriate to blame her daughter for Rebecca's death. And when I say her daughter, her other daughter, Rebecca's sister, Kimberly. Yeah, this mother is now blaming her daughter for her other daughter's death. Yeah, but she threw in someone else for good measure. She threw in dead Rebecca's fiance, a guy named Richard Fowler. And by the way, I should note here, if we're going to talk about the creepiness of the family here, Courtney, bio mom used to date Rich Fowler, who's her daughter. Her dead daughter's fiance, Kimmy is in.
Stephanie Pratt
Jail, and so is Rich. Do you know what they're going to be charged with at the preliminary hearing?
Rebecca Park (voicemail)
Homicide.
Stephanie Pratt
Your grandson is missing. Do you think about this? The baby. Could the baby still be alive?
Rebecca Park (voicemail)
I hope so.
Ashley Banfield
Well, none of that was true, was it? But Kimberly Park, Rebecca Park's sister, the victim's sister, is charged with something now, herself. She's charged with tampering with evidence and lying to the police. The victim, Rebecca's fiance, Richard Fowler, the guy who dated Rebecca's mom, too, he's also charged with something. But it's weird. It's drug crimes. Maybe it's just holding him so they can get more information out of him. I don't know. But, yeah, he's faced with that. And I found out a whole lot more from Stephanie Pratt, the podcaster, the one who Courtney spoke with. But before I get to that, and I've got a great conversation, I want to play for you. I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting this podcast. You mean the world to me. Also, I want to thank my sponsors, like Incogni, because they make possible. And I mean, look, you know, and I know I cover some really, really dark stuff, right? But honestly, some of the worst of it is happening right there behind your screen. Your name, phone number, home address, all your personal info is out there online. And you didn't give it away. Somebody else did. Somebody sold it. They're called data brokers. They track you. They know everything about you. They know about me. It just drives me nuts. They know what we buy, what we search, what meds we take, what our K kids do, what, where our kids go to school, right? And now if you throw AI into that mix, it's like handing a loaded weapon to a scammer. One phone call, suddenly you could be wiring money to someone who sounds just like your child, right? This is chilling stuff. But what most people don't know is that you have the legal right to make the data brokers delete your info. The only problem is it takes a really long time to do that. So that's why I use Incogni to do it for me. They go right to the companies, they demand that the personal information is taken off the web, right? They even offer a custom plan, unlimited. You flag the site that's exposing your info. Incogni's privacy team goes right to it directly. This is power, right? Not just peace of mind. So if privacy matters to you, and it should go to incogni.com, drop dead. And use the code. Drop dead. I got you. 60% off again, incogni.com. drop dead. Use the code. Drop dead. Get your data off the market.
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Ashley Banfield
Okay, back to the story. Earlier on my News Nation show, Banfield, I talked to Stephanie Pratt from the podcast Steph's Case Files. Because Stephanie, she talked to the person who's arrested in this case before and after her daughter's body was found.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Good to have you on Stephanie. Thank you so much for being here.
Ashley Banfield
I wanted to ask you what you.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Think the most important information was that you learned from your interviews.
Stephanie Pratt
Well, I learned the timeline, which is so important, and I learned inconsistencies in the timeline that Courtney was given and the descriptions that she was giving of Rebecca getting into that mystery car on November 3rd. And through our interviews, things started not to add up and didn't make sense and I knew something nefarious had happened.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
So tell me what you know or at least what you suspect happened after the victim went to her family's home. Like sort of take me moment by moment.
Stephanie Pratt
Sure. So on November 3, 2025. Courtney went over to Rich's house, which Rich is the fiance, to pick Courtney up, to take her to go for shakes. This is between 6:30 and 7pm on November 3rd. She arrives, they pick her up. This is according to Courtney herself and her own timeline. By 7:30, they're back at home. And Courtney said that they sat in the driveway and. And planned the baby shower. And then all of a sudden, a car pulled up and Rebecca said, mom, I have somebody coming to get me. And Courtney said, what do you mean? Who's coming to get you? And she said that Rebecca took the $2,000 all in $100 bills, put it in a pocket, and got in the mystery car and drove away. That was the last time she claims that she saw her. But the interesting part is she says that happened around 8:30, and by 11:00 clock, she was calling Rich the fiance, so many times in a row to try to get his attention, but he was asleep at home. So they set up this whole thing to have Rich ping the phone so that they could find the phone. And then when they found the phone, that's when the timeline began of where is Rebecca and her baby.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Can I jump in for a moment too? And I'm just gonna ask our control room to put that graphic up with all four of the faces again so that we can get real clarity. It's confusing. So Courtney Bartholomew is the biological mom. And of course, you're not seeing on the screen Rebecca the victim here, but Rebecca's mom is Courtney Bartholomew, and Bradley Bartholomew is the. Is her husband. And then Kimberly park is the victim's sister, and Richard Lee Fowler is the victim's fiance. But is it true that Courtney, that mom, also dated that fiance of her daughter?
Stephanie Pratt
Yes, that is true. They dated until 2023, from what I understand. And Rebecca, who is 22, started dating Rich, they became engaged, and she became pregnant.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Okay, so next question. You did some interviews before and after Rebecca's body was found. How did things change from this mom, Courtney, as to what she told you before Rebecca was found and what she told you after Rebecca was found dead.
Stephanie Pratt
Well, it's interesting because she repeated this timeline of this mystery car. And I kept asking her, courtney, that doesn't make any sense. She wouldn't last very long on the road with only $2,000.
Do you think that she left Rich? And Courtney was adamant that she left Rich to get away from his ways, but she didn't want to search. She said that she was disabled and in the wheelchair. I noticed that. But I also noticed as time went on when protesters started protesting in front of the home, she became agitated and wanted to schedule a search. At approximately 11am on November 25, when Rebecca was found, she came out to her driveway. The day before she set it up, they met at the house and sure enough, right where she pointed is where they found Rebecca's body, which by the way, wasn't there the day before when that area had been searched. So Rebecca had been moved overnight.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
So she said something also after Rebecca's body was found, something about losing a child. Can you explain what she told you?
Stephanie Pratt
Yes. So after Rebecca's body was found, she came on for another interview and this time she was more emotional, saying that no one knows what it's like to lose a child, quote, unquote. And I found it peculiar that she was soaking in this support, trying to find her grandson. And all this time she knows and knew where they were.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Here's the other thing that I couldn't. Well, I guess I could believe it because I couldn't figure out why a mom would do something like this to her own biological daughter, cut a fetus out while that daughter is alive. But you learned something that might point to motive. What was it?
Stephanie Pratt
Well, we know that Courtney Bartholomew sent a message from her Facebook to someone telling them that she had a baby in the nicu, born early and he was having trouble breathing. This is in October, just before Rebecca goes missing. And I asked her about that. I confronted her. She denied sending it, although it is from her Facebook account. And what I allege, everything is alleged. What I feel has happened here is that because she talked to me about wanting to have a baby with Brad. She even talked about her 14 year old son wanting to have a sibling. And all of this was set up right around the time that Rebecca went into sort of a premature labor, she went to the hospital. It wasn't quite. This was the day before she went missing. So I feel like the premeditation charge that came in on Courtney was because she must have researched how to do this blotched C section in the middle of the woods in the process the baby died. But I feel like that they were trying to take the baby and keep the baby for their own.
Ashley Banfield (interviewer)
Well, I will be waiting for those first few hearings to see if they release any evidence of Google searches because that very often can do a lot of people in. And when you've got this many people allegedly involved, there may be a lot of communication. And if there's that intricate an operation that might have been required. That would be something that could show up. Boy, is it ever good that you're here. It's very complicated. Stephanie Pratt, great job at getting those interviews. And I really do believe that your interviews are going to be a huge part of any trial or case against them. Thanks so much for this.
Ashley Banfield
And that's where this case stands tonight. But mark my word, we are going to stay on this case. Every update, every development. So make sure you subscribe. I want to make sure you get those developments as they actually surface. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for watching and listening. And remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.
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Ashley Banfield
Three employees and two work trucks.
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Ashley Banfield
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Ashley Banfield
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Ashley Banfield
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Episode: Absolutely Horrifying: Pregnant Woman Lured By Mom & Found Stabbed To Death with Baby Cut Out?
Host: Ashleigh Banfield
Date: December 5, 2025
In this chilling episode, Ashleigh Banfield investigates the harrowing case of Rebecca Park, a pregnant 22-year-old from Michigan who was found stabbed to death with her baby cut from her womb. As details unfold, Ashleigh delves into disturbing family dynamics, motivations for the crime, and exclusive insights from Stephanie Pratt, a true crime podcaster who spoke with key suspects both before and after Rebecca’s body was found. With her signature irreverent style and relentless pursuit of truth, Ashleigh guides listeners through one of the most shocking cases in her decades-long career.
Timeline & Contradictions:
Potential Motive:
| Timestamp | Segment | Content/Highlights | |-----------|---------|--------------------| | 01:35 | Opening of the Case | Banfield introduces the brutality of Rebecca Park’s murder and discovery | | 02:51 | Charges & Torture | Discussion of charges; focus on suspected torture aspect and method | | 05:29 | The Alleged Lure | Bio mom’s alleged plot, voicemail evidence surfaces | | 07:01 | Victim’s Voicemail | Rebecca Park's last-known message—plans with mother | | 08:27 | Mother’s Blame-Shifting | After death, Courtney blames others, including her own daughter and victim's fiancé | | 12:35 | Interview with Stephanie Pratt | Exclusive insights from key true crime podcaster | | 13:04 | Timeline Inconsistencies | Pratt explains contradictions in bio mom’s version of events | | 16:28 | Body Discovery Details | Pratt recounts how Courtney led searchers to Rebecca’s body | | 18:24 | Possible Motive | Facebook post and family pressure to “have a baby” | | 19:34 | Digital Evidence & Next Steps | Ashleigh talks about the anticipation of further digital forensics | | 20:11 | Episode Close | Banfield pledges to keep reporting on the case |
The episode is dark, direct, and unflinching. Ashleigh Banfield brings her trademark blend of journalistic rigor and personal candor, crossing between hard fact and incredulous, at times irreverent, commentary—emphasizing just how twisted the facts are. The episode’s emotional impact is heightened by real voicemail messages and behind-the-scenes context from Stephanie Pratt.
Final Note:
Ashleigh promises to maintain coverage as the case unfolds, underscoring her relentless pursuit of truth—no matter how horrifying.
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer AI—capturing the tragedy, investigation, and disturbing family dynamics as told by Ashleigh Banfield, with insights from Stephanie Pratt.