When a woman and her two children become lost in the woods, law enforcement braves a severe cold snap to track them down. But when the rescue effort takes a turn for the worse, serious questions begin to arise about why exactly they were out here in the first place.
“That little girl ain’t all right. She wasn’t moving.”
“You think she was trying to kill the kids?”
The following report is based on official police records released to date, and the footage has never been seen before until now. On the morning of January 16th, 2024, a woman in Douglas County, Georgia, calls 911 when she realizes she’s in desperate need of help.
“I can’t really make out what she’s saying either. I don’t know if she’s inside, outside, alone. Hello, miss.”
“Yeah, I’m outside.”
“Okay. Are you with someone?”
“Yeah, my son and my daughter.”
“Your son and daughter. Are you in a car?”
“No, I think I’m plotting you in a field somewhere.”
“Are you by water?”
“Yeah, I am. Yeah.”
“Okay. Were you walking along a trail of some sort?”
“Uh, no. You were trying to get to a hotel and the Uber dropped us off in the nowhere.”
“Okay. Okay. But it looks like you’re in the woods. So, did you walk into the woods or they dropped you off in the woods?”
“Yes, that’s where he dropped us off.”
“Okay. What was the name of the hotel that you were going to?”
“The Fox Sleeps.”
“Oh, the Foxhall Resort.”
“Yes.”
Foxhall Resort describes itself as a thousand acre playground with luxury rooms and yearround outdoor pursuits. Though it’s unlikely the itinerary includes being stranded in the woods overnight.
“A woman with two children, a boy and a girl. They’re very small. Um, they came in yesterday morning. I saw them. They were sitting in the lounge area for a little bit and um they spent some time in here and then they left. They went to leave out through the back but then changed their minds and came through the front. Um I never saw them again after that.”
The desk clerk says the woman, 35-year-old Yuria Ridge, checked in 2 days ago and hasn’t been responding to calls from the staff.
“When I called the cell phone, the cell phone went straight to voicemail. So, at that point, we were a little bit alarmed and then um I let our front desk manager know and I guess she must have called you guys because we haven’t heard anything.”
“No, she’s calling from the woods.”
“They’re not big kids. They’re small. So, to stay out overnight with these number of temperatures, I’m just a little concerned.”
“You’re right about that. Right. Exactly. Because when I came in this morning at 7, it was boring. A winter storm warning was in effect throughout the night and the temperatures were around 20° F.”
In a race against these dangerous conditions, the police begin their search while dispatch keeps Uria on the line.
“I’m about to hit the siren. I’m over there by where she’s staying at. Was she able to hear that? Negative. We’re not hearing anything. We’re trying to get a picture from one of her plot when she called in.”
“She’s not hearing it. Negative. If she hears you, say where YOU’RE AT. SHE’S SAYING you’re very close to her.”
“That’s where she saying she’s at right now.”
“She ended up walking away from the sirens. We’re trying to get her to turn back around.”
The deputies go to Yura’s room looking for a clue to her whereabouts.
“I think I’m wrong.”
“I was in radio when she Lindsay was on the phone with her. You could hear her going in and out.”
“There’s kids.”
“I know. That’s what there’s there are kids. I went to the room. There’s some clothes. Baby clothes.”
“They need the helicopter from the state quickly. And I’m telling you, I heard her on the phone. She sounds terrible.”
“I ran code down here. I’m worried death about them kids.”
Yuria and her two children, 7-year-old Isaiah and three-year-old Alina, were last seen on hotel surveillance getting into a car out front.
“This is the Uber here.”
“The Uber dropped them off here. No, this is when they got in. I don’t have video of them getting of them coming back.”
“It’s kind of because we never saw them coming.”
“Strange how she got so mixed up.”
The video shows the three leaving Foxhall around 10:15 a.m. yesterday morning.
“She paid for 10 days.”
“10 days.”
“How much is the room there?”
“It was at 233 a night. So on over $2,000.”
“Yeah, near $3,000.”
How Yuria’s hotel stay turned into a fight for survival is unknown. But when two Foxhall employees finally find her and the children in the woods, it’s clear that the fight is not over yet.
“Can I get the ambulance police ASAP and come down here to this day?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Put our coat over me, but she’s she’s solid ice, man. She’s cold.”
“Boy, come on. Come on.”
“We got these two babies. We need to come ASAP, please. Hey, Mickey. Just give him to me if you got him.”
“She Okay, we’re coming. We’re We’re coming back.”
The children are taken to the ambulance where the medics will have their work cut out for them.
“All right. She’s the worst.”
“He’s the worst. Yeah.”
“All right. You’re going to be okay. Nice.”
“She’s up the hill. need help with her fits in all.”
“Shut that door so we can try to try to maintain as much heat as possible.”
“Are your clothes wet too?”
“Yeah, we we we stripped his clothes off.”
“Yeah, he’s stripped.”
“He’s stripped off. All right, triple naked.”
“Here, if you want to shake. Trying to get them warmer. You’re okay. I’m going put on my feet.”
“Dude, I don’t know how the you got your kids out in the pool.”
UA herself sits in the back of a police car trying to warm up.
“Oh, we’re praying.”
“Lift your feet up.”
“Can you lift this one?”
“Lift it up for me. I I told my son, he was like, ‘Everything’s not going to be okay.’ I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ Isn’t every time I tell you it’s going to be okay, it is.”
“I’m so sick of these woods.”
“How they get all the way over here, but I don’t I don’t understand why she didn’t call till now.”
“And she had a phone the whole time. That’s what I don’t get.”
“My daughter was just crying.”
“That little girl ain’t all right. She wasn’t moving. We’re going to put you on this gurnie out here. Okay. The gurnie.”
“It’s It’s the uh ambulance bed.”
“So, we can get you to the ambulance. Okay. Can you tell me your name again?”
“Yuria Ridge.”
“All right. Grab around my neck like you did last time.”
“Hold on. She’s already been transported.”
“Who dropped you off?”
“They just dropped you off in the middle of the woods.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Aliyah. Okay.”
“Alina.”
“Alina.”
“Okay.”
“Alina.”
“She’s gonna be fine.”
“Do you know Elena has any medical problems there?”
“Does Elena have any medical problems? Does she have asthma or anything?”
“You think she has asthma?”
“Okay. Okay. We got a little bit of response. I’ll take that.”
“Well, I’m going to take you to my car. Okay.”
“Take take all the seats you want, guys.”
“Lay down. Yeah. All right, we’re going to lay you down. Okay.”
“My bones feel weak.”
“His bones feel weak. He was having a hard time walking.”
“And also, I have a sore throat and runny nose.”
Police will later discover that both Isaiah and his sister had been sick with the flu in recent days. A fact that makes Alena’s current condition all the more concerning.
“Where did you say you found her face down at?”
“She’s face down, I think, right here.”
“Okay. All right. Just back up just a little bit. No, you’re fine.”
“Yeah, I thought she was dead when I got here. Honestly, she her eyes were wide open. She wasn’t moving.”
“Okay.”
“The mom was curled up in fetal position right there by her phone or kind of sitting up, but”
“Okay.”
“knees to her chest and the sun the son was standing right here by that stuff with his hands in his pockets.”
“Okay.”
“They all smelled like, you know, they ured on themselves. The little girl especially.”
“Ain’t no Uber driver going to just drop her off in the woods. Unless she had a ride somewhere and then she started acting up in a car and he pushed him out or just pushed him out or just got him out of the car.”
“It’s crazy world. I mean,”
Alena’s condition has some of the deputies wondering how this happened to begin with.
“I don’t think that three-year-old is going to make it cuz it’s already unresponsive now. I’m sorry. in the middle of the night and knowing it’s cold and it’s gonna get colder, I wouldn’t be laying down and sitting still. I’d be fight finding my way out.”
“You remember that case?”
“Who is it?”
“That’s who I’m think what I’m thinking.”
“Susan Smith. You think she’s trying to kill the kids?”
Uria and the children are transported to the hospital where Isaiah is listed in critical condition with a body temperature of 93.3. Alena’s temperature is so low it doesn’t register on the thermometer.
“A 3 to fouryear-old female who’s been out in the woods since last night.”
While doctors and nurses try to save Alina, Isaiah gets a delivery.
“Hey buddy, we got we got your food for you.”
“Yeah.”
“You ready?”
“Want your nuggets? I got some nuggets, barbecue, fries, and mac and cheese. You eat and get better. Okay, we checking on you. All right.”
“All right, buddy.”
“All right, little man.”
Tragically, it’s beginning to look like his sister will make no such recovery.
“Pulse check.”
“No pulse. Are we going to continue secure?”
“Yep.”
But the doctors finally make the call at 2:45 p.m. and Alina is pronounced dead at the age of three.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
The heartbreaking news is first delivered to Alena’s grandparents.
“We worked on her for over an hour and 40 minutes and we could not get her back. I’m so sorry she did die. Okay.”
“We took good care of her. We did everything we could. We really did. We just We just could not get her heart back.”
“We did, too.”
“I know. You know, if you would like to see her whenever you’re ready, I can walk you guys back.”
“Oh, no. No. No. No.”
“Take your time.”
But there’s one more person to notify. Yura,
“when your daughter came in, her temperature was very low that it was so low that we couldn’t even get a reading of what her temperature was and did everything we could, but you could not get her heart stop.”
“Okay. Your daughter died.”
“I’m so sorry. Okay. Okay.”
The doctor stays to ask a few questions.
“Do you remember where you were last night when you called?”
“Yeah, we were in the woods.”
“And when you got out of the over and you realized you had to run test, did you call them back or did you call?”
“Yeah.”
“Did anyone come?”
“No.”
“Did you call any your relative, parents or anything like that?”
“And still no one came. They’re all not sleeping 3:00 in the morning.”
Two of her friends say they received Facebook messages last night saying,
“Can you please Uber to Foxwood Suites? Our Uber to the wrong place.”
Neither of them responded with one telling police she didn’t know what it meant.
“Okay. Okay. Okay. I know it just gave you a lot. I’m so sorry.”
But with this incident resulting in the death of a young girl, many more questions remain.
“So, to get you kind of caught up, the seven-year-old told Melinda that they went to mom’s work last night. Um, he hasn’t eaten in a couple days. We have history of them twice within this last weekend. Um, the one of the times they thought that she was trying to burn the house down. Um, they couldn’t prove anything. Kids seemed okay. Um, um, she was smoking marijuana in her room with them. Said she was going to get an apartment. Um, and then they booked 10 days.”
Both Yuria and Isaiah stay in the hospital for several days as their health is monitored. In the meantime, a detective speaks to the people Uria has been living with in recent years, her parents.
“We’re just trying to understand what could have possibly been happening for Uriah to have them babies out in this cold like that.”
“She’s got this long um history of alcohol abuse.”
“Okay.”
“And that’s the reason she came here from Kansas.”
“How when was that? It’s been about four years.”
“Okay.”
“Here recently she’s she’s kind of accelerated. We we think there’s other drugs involved. We know there’s marijuana. She was smoking it in the house and we tell her not to.”
But this is far from the most distressing behavior they’ve seen from their daughter recently.
“She went for our lock box. She tried to get the gun. I had to fight her off of the lock box and then she told the officer when the officer got here that it was her gun threatening to kill us, threatening to burn us and you know”
“there been any mental health issues?”
“Mental health issues. Yes, sir. Yes.”
“Anything diagnosed that you know of?”
“No, we think this is a new uh thing for her.”
Police reports show that the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office was out at the Ridg’s home on both the 13th and the 14th. The latter being the day she would check into Foxhall with her children.
“She threw all of our stuff in the tub. We got pictures. She emptied the vacuum cleaners in our beds and all of our bath stuff. She threw them all in the toilet stools. Flooded the well, not flooded, but filled all the odd products in there. His insulin peel uh pins, the Xbox, put it in the tub, filled the tub full of water. And this is why the police were the police here.”
“They did not believe us at all at all. They kept saying, ‘Well, you know, because we told him she was upstairs smoking with the kids in the room and he said, “Smells like seasonings to me.”‘”
Before Yuria left for Foxhall, her parents say she sent them one last message.
“What time about was that that she left? You think”
“I can look on the security thing? Because she unplugged the security thing and set a log on fire. She told us she was going to burn us up.”
Yuria is released from the hospital on the 19th, 3 days after she was admitted.
“Feeling better?”
That moment may be delayed because Yura has been arrested on possession of marijuana, which investigators found in her clothes out in the woods. Whether or not more charges are added could depend greatly on how this interview goes, and Yura has already given the deputies cause for concern.
“All right, you got out this tub. Come on. It going to say good old when we get in there.”
“Let’s start back this week. This last weekend.”
“Mhm.”
“So, I’ve read in the reports that you had a couple, I guess, problems with your parents this weekend. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on with that?”
“My parents and my sister are all ganging up on me. Um,”
“what do you mean ganging up on you?”
“My sister kept picking me up and slamming me on the hard work floor and pick him up and slam me and um my dad didn’t like me talking about his infidelity. So he”
“talking about what?”
“His infidelity.”
“Oh.”
“So he he choked me to the bed. My mom um she just kept pushing me against the refrigerator, banging my head on marble, chasing me with a knife and a blowtorrch.”
“She burned a blowtorrch.”
“Yeah, she burned me. I had a big bubble up on here. She burnt herself drunk. Just had a big burn and so I stopped her from cooking.”
“Did you call the police about any of those?”
“No, I’m going to when I leave here.”
As the interview turns to what happened at Foxhall, Yuria struggles to tell the story.
“You got to tell me how you got in the woods.”
“I Ubered to the woods. I just told you I Ubered to the woods. He dropped us off in the wrong place.”
“Ubered from where though?”
“From our hotel. So, an Uber picked you up from your hotel and took you to the back of the complex and dropped you off in the woods, right?”
“For what reason?”
“Because I had been at work and was trying to get back to my hotel, but it took us to the woods and it looked like the other place, but it wasn’t.”
Investigators know that Yuria and the children were picked up from her workplace late at night and dropped off at 12:07 a.m. in front of an event hall called the Stables, set well back from the main hotel complex.
“The Uber took us to the woods. It was very rainy. We slept under the tree altogether. And then the next day, we called the police and they picked us up.”
“Why would the Uber not take you to your room? Why would he take you to the woods?”
“I don’t know.”
The Uber driver that night, however, has no trouble remembering why.
“So, when you came in, what did you think? You saw”
“I saw a house maybe a clubhouse or something like that. Okay.”
“Right.”
“And there was a little road going down.”
“Mhm. And what what did she say when you stopped there? She told you keep going or”
“Yeah, she told me keep going. Keep going. And got to the point where I I don’t I think I can go no more. You want me to stop this? and he got out.”
“I mean, did you ask him? Did you say, ‘Hey, I don’t I don’t live here. My room’s up there.'”
“No, because it looked like the place we were supposed to go to. So, I didn’t say anything.”
“So, you just walked into the woods at that point?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you walk towards the light? If you could see, it was looked like the place that you were staying.”
“That’s exactly what I did.”
When a lieutenant on the case was later asked if Yuria might have been trying to get to the main hotel complex by walking through the woods, he said,
“No, not in the direction she went. Even in the dark, even in the deepest, darkest spot of the property, you’re still not that far of a walk from the street lights that go up and down. They got street lights from the almost the front of the property to the back.”
Isaiah has his own recollections of that night.
“As we get out the car, as we’re trying to find our hotel, we get lost in the middle of the night. My mom looks at her phone. It’s 210. It’s way way way past our bedtime because we’re supposed to go to sleep at 9:30. It’s already 2:10. So, we find the tree, go to sleep under that tree, and then it starts raining on us. We walked for miles trying to find the entrance and then finally we laid under a tree cuz it was real rainy.”
“Right.”
“And we went to bed.”
“Okay. Was your kids crying? Were they upset?”
“Yeah, they were tired. I went to sleep.”
“What were what were they saying to you?”
“Uh, I want to go to sleep on my lay down.”
“And what were you saying back to them?”
“I said, ‘Okay, let’s find some shelter under the tree and we’ll lay down.'”
“Did you have any food or water out there?”
“I had water and um we had coats and stuff covering us, hoodies and jackets, double jackets. Okay.”
“So, all of y’all had on jackets, like real warm winter jackets.”
“Mhm.”
“How cold do you think it was that night?”
“20°.”
“Okay.”
“We’re all huddled together, though. I had my arms around them.”
“Did you fall asleep at all?”
“No, not at all.”
Yuria says she passed the time making friends with the local wildlife.
“It was way too cold and this mole kept trying to lay on me.”
“Oh, he did.”
“A mole.”
“What’s that? Like a little animal?”
“Yeah. Was it white friendly or?”
“Yeah, he laid in my pocket and then he tried to put his little face right here.”
“Oh wow.”
“I made him a little bed out of um leaves and put him there and put some paper towels on him and he went to sleep.”
“We were both crying.”
“Mhm.”
“Most of you guys stopped crying. You You’re making me kind of sad.”
“Did your sister say anything?”
“Yeah, she kept saying I’m scared.”
“When you guys woke up, what did you wake up to?”
“Uh, the rain has stopped. It’s still pretty cold. Not as cold. About 40°. And then we called the police.”
Yuri’s 911 call came in at 11:46 a.m. Approximately 11 hours after the Uber dropped them off.
“And what were your children at this point?”
“Um, nothing. Just sitting there waiting on the police with me.”
“So your son was talking.”
“Mhm.”
“Your daughter was talking.”
“She was asleep.”
“She was asleep.”
“Mhm.”
“Okay. But you checked on her. You made sure she was okay.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah.”
“And she was asleep.”
“Mhm.”
“Okay. What made you finally decide, you know what, I should call 911 at this point?”
“Cuz we didn’t have nowhere else to go. You know, we were too sleepy the night before and it crossed my mind. I was so tired.”
“Right. So, what happened to that little animal that you had on you?”
“Oh, he um when we woke up, he he came up and nudged me and said bye. And he took off.”
“He said bye.”
“Yeah.”
“He actually talked to you or he nudged me. Yeah.”
“When you guys woke up the next day, did your sister say anything?”
“No.”
“No,”
“she couldn’t get up.”
The medics who treated Alina at the scene remember exactly how she looked.
“The three-year-old had a vacant stare. Her eyes were open and fixed with pupils dilated, making little to no sound. Her clothes are wet and freezing. It is by far the coldest person I’ve ever touched.”
Self-recorded videos show Elena and Isaiah in better times.
“Now this is going to be another minute of me screaming.”
“Are you freaking heck? Where are you? I want to go and do it.”
“So, it is me and Alina and we are”
“I’m sorry.”
This incident may have been the worst ordeal of Isaiah and Alina’s lives, but it wasn’t the first. 14 months earlier, an alarming call came in to 911.
“County 911. What’s the location of the emergency?”
“I’m at Thunder Zone. Do not let her leave.”
“What’s going on there?”
“We got a lady that is super super drunk. Her little baby came and told us his mom was drunk and they needed help. I don’t know how they’re trying to leave, but now she’s trying to leave. She can barely walk. It’s It’s a horrible situation.”
“Where the kids at?”
“Hi, darling.”
“Hi, I’m Officer Reyes. Dogsville Police Department.”
“What’s going on today?”
“She dropped it.”
“What’s going on?”
“Do you have a warrant? Whatever.”
“Cops are here.”
“I don’t need a warrant. You’re not under arrest right now.”
“Okay.”
“So, I’m trying to ask you what’s going on today.”
“What’s the matter? You don’t have a warrant? I don’t care.”
“Okay. What? Watch her. Who’s the manager that saw everything? You. Okay.”
“She’s sitting at the table. Little man right here taps on one of the party guests that’s at the party next to him and says, ‘I need help. My mom is drunk.’ She’s literally at the table like this.”
“Okay.”
“So, finally, we get her to come to a little bit and I ask her, ‘Hey, how did you get here? Did you drive?’ She says, ‘No, I got dropped off.’ I said, ‘Okay, can I have a number for someone I can call to come and get you?'”
“I just want them to come pick you up.”
“She’s like, she’s like, ‘No, what do you need a number for?'”
The bowling alley manager says that Isaiah started to give her their address, but Yuria wasn’t having it.
“She grabs him by the face and tells him to shut up.”
“Okay.”
“So then I’m like, ‘Well, we’re just going to call Douglas County.’ She starts to call you guys on the phone. She gets up. She grabs him by the back of his neck and drags him over here. She runs past the front counter. She drops baby girl running across the front counter cuz she”
“like out like she fell out”
“holding her. She fell out, dropped her out of her hand, but he’s also crying. And when she gets to the front counter, she opens, slaps him, tell him to shut up. And I was like, she grab she grabs him and she drags them both into the bathroom stall where she is then sitting in the bathroom.”
“She’s sitting on the toilet. Baby girl is standing in front of her. He was still trying to give her the address. She has him like this”
“and she’s steady like doing this and he’s like, ‘Stop. Let me go.’ Like he’s asking her to let him go. And this was all in the restroom.”
“Yeah, the second part of it is all in the restaurant.”
“How were you able to Were you standing over the stall?”
“Looking over the stall.”
“He eventually like jakes away cuz she’s peeing at this point. So he he js away from her, unlocks the door,”
“and I was able to grab him out of the door.”
“Both of them.”
“Yeah. I was able to grab him out the door and then baby girl was right behind him. So I grabbed her too. And I brought them and secured them in here.”
The police take a moment to talk to Isaiah and look at his bruises.
“Hey buddy, you you mind telling me what happened today?”
“She dragged me right into the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
“And she and she and she did and she did my mouth like this.”
“Okay.”
“I was trying to tell the girl um what the phone number is. She she punched me right here.”
Those statements along with the obvious marks on Isaiah’s face lead police to a decision.
“All right. You’re under arrest, okay? For cruelty to children.”
“All right. You understand that?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“That’s just not what parents”
Yuria was arrested for battery, public drunkenness, and cruelty to children. Cases that remain pending while she’s free on bond.
“Do you have any history of drug use other than the marijuana?”
“No.”
“You don’t use anything else? You ever use meth?”
“No.”
“You ever use cocaine?”
“No.”
“Do you know why you would test positive for cocaine in the hospital then? I thought it was my aderall.”
“What is the deal with your parents? Why are they saying they think you’re on drugs?”
“Just I don’t know, three weeks ago, she’s office manager running a whole entire office with no problems. Networking with all kind of people, seeming highly functional. Then all of a sudden, she can’t get the kids to work to school on time. They can’t get to daycare. She can’t get out of the bed. She’s um doing stuff like putting the skillet on with the grease and the house is full of smoke. And when we ask her, ‘What are you trying to do? Burn down the house?’ ‘Oh, it’s only smoke.’ Like, it’s not a you know,”
“a big just totally just irrational. Just getting worse and worse and worse.”
“So, there’s been a drastic change in the last 3 weeks”
“at least.”
“Why are they saying they think you’re on drugs?”
“Cuz they are.”
“You think your parents are using drugs?”
“My mom told me she was on crack. She smokes crack.”
“She told me she was.”
“Have you ever smoked crack before?”
“No. Hell.”
“What’s the hardest drug you’ve ever done before?”
“Cocaine is probably the hardest drug.”
“And when did you last use cocaine?”
“Honestly, about a week ago.”
The detective steps out of the room for a moment to leave Yuria with her thoughts, but she soon returns to dig deeper into what happened when she was dropped off that night.
“When you got out of the Uber, he wasn’t mad at you. Mm-m. Cuz you know, I talked to him yesterday and he told me that he was pretty mad at you because he said you was using cocaine in the back of his car.”
“What was he doing?”
“Trying to put on my seat. Don’t put on my seat. I was telling like, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do that.’ I was white.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, the African co.”
“Do you remember that?”
“Mhm.”
“Were you using cocaine in the back?”
“Yeah, cuz he was mad cuz I was licking. Yeah. He was You were licking his seat and he got mad about it.”
“Yeah.”
“What were you in the back using your cocaine?”
“Yeah. and I put a bad rating for her with Uber.”
Yuria admits that she followed up the cocaine with a snack.
“So all that marijuana is yours and then the last time you used that was when”
“uh that I didn’t have a liar, so I just ate some that night.”
“You ate marijuana? You usually do that?”
“Yeah, I put it in brownies and stuff, too.”
“Okay. Do you think you have a drug problem?”
“No.”
“You don’t think using cocaine every day is a problem? I used everything very lightly.”
The incident at the bowling alley along with a DUI arrest two months ago puts that statement in doubt. But it turns out there’s something even darker lurking in Yura’s past.
“What do you go to therapy for?”
“Stress like this.”
“So you’ve had something dramatic happened in your life before?”
“Yeah. I was watching my friend’s baby and he sleep on his belly and he died.”
Six years earlier on December 4th, 2018, Yuria was asked to look after her friend’s seven-month old baby.
“Yeah. I had dropped him off to babysit her. She was my sister’s best friend.”
“Oh, that’s how you knew her.”
“Um, that’s how I knew her.”
“Okay.”
“And I need a babysitter for my son. So, I had dropped her off that day. He was perfectly fine.”
But later in the day, she got a call from Yuria telling her that medics were at the house. her baby wasn’t breathing.
“They told me that I need to come, but at that time I didn’t know that my son was, you know, was dead. So, my original thing that I was told was she had put my baby down for a nap and she didn’t she was still woke. She was up doing laundry is what she told officers, but then when I got the autopsy back, I was told that she was sleep. I guess it was no foul play or something that they could tell and they just ruled it as Sid, but he could lift his head, turn over, crawl, sit up. So Sids didn’t make sense to me,”
“right?”
“But they said that she”
“pursue the case or anything.”
“Um, they told me that there was no case.”
“Are you and her still friends?”
“Um, she don’t talk to me no more”
“because of that incident.”
“So she blamed you for it?”
“Yeah. even though they did autopsy and the police came and investigated and you know said it wasn’t my fault. She don’t care.”
“So they they just missed the case and said it was a mass accident.”
“Yeah.”
This time around things might be different.
“He told me that he’s the one that covered up your your daughter with some leaves trying to keep her warm.”
“Mhm.”
“Do you remember that?”
“Mhm.”
“Do you did you help do that at all?”
“Yeah. Do you think your actions of you using drugs is what killed your daughter?”
“No. Cuz”
“Be honest with me.”
“I am being honest with you”
“because you obviously have a drug problem, right?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, you do.”
“But I don’t think that because my daughter was alive.”
“She wasn’t alive. She was She was gone. When we got there, we did the best we could. We tried to revive her. Do you understand that she was dead?”
“I’m saying when she got in the car, she didn’t register on the thermometer.”
“Okay. when they got her to the hospital cuz she was so cold.”
“When we got in the car, she was alive.”
“If you had her covered up with that jacket,”
“I did.”
“She wouldn’t have been as cold as she was.”
“Well, I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. You can’t tell me I made that up.”
“Yeah,”
“I held my bathe all night long.”
“She was wet.”
“We were all she had on was a little bitty Mickey Mouse hoodie. Her clothes were soaking wet.”
“We all were.”
“Okay. She was face down when they found her.”
“Okay. face down with mud on her face.”
“Do you understand that?”
“I do.”
“Yeah. And you act like you don’t even care.”
“I’m her mother. Of course I care.”
“Well, you don’t act like it.”
“I don’t want to get wrong.”
“And you’re all confused about your dates and times because you were high on drugs, right?”
“Mhm.”
“You’re saying yes.”
“Yep.”
“And you being high on drugs is a direct impact of what happened to your daughter. Yep. I’m get some help. Okay, let’s go get ready to go back. Okay, what we’re going to do is I’m going to take you down the book end.”
“You might be facing some additional charges. I’ll just let you know that.”
“Indeed.”
Five short days later, Yuria is charged with several serious crimes. In a statement, the Douglas County District Attorney said, “We hope that others will avoid the toxic mix of drugs, alcohol, and indifference that led to this great loss.” In October 2024, Yuria Ridge plead guilty to two felony counts of cruelty to children, one count of possession of a schedule 2 controlled substance, one misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, and one count of public drunkenness. a mix of charges from not only that night in the woods, but from the 2022 bowling alley incident as well.
“Well, you’re a good big brother for taking care of your sister, man. You’re super brave, man. I’m proud of you. Okay, baby girl, you are an absolute princess and I love your beads, baby. They are so pretty and I love your earrings. Okay.”
It was that three-year-old girl’s death from hypothermia that led to Yura’s most serious charge, murder. She plead guilty to that as well and was sentenced to life in prison. According to police records, 7-year-old Isaiah, whose name has been changed throughout this video to protect his identity, was placed in the temporary care of his grandparents while his father applied for permanent custody.
