Rebecca Park Murder: Mother Accused of Torturing Pregnant Daughter but Keeping Her Alive Until She Cut Out Baby

Rebecca Park was still alive when her unborn child was allegedly cut from her womb — a detail prosecutors described in a Michigan courtroom on Dec. 2 as they outlined what they called an act of “evil personified.”

Park’s mother, 40-year-old Cortney Bartholomew, and stepfather, 47-year-old Bradly Bartholomew, have both been charged in the killing of the 22-year-old, who was days away from giving birth when she vanished.

“This is, frankly, evil personified,” Wexford County Prosecutor Johanna Carey told the judge as she argued that the Bartholomews should be held without bail.

The arrests came after a nearly month-long search for Park, who was last seen leaving her mother’s home just before midnight on Nov. 3.

During the couple’s first court appearance on Dec. 2, Carey laid out what investigators believe happened next. She said Bradly brought Rebecca to the couple’s home, where he and Cortney allegedly forced her into another vehicle and drove her into the woods.

There, according to Carey, they stabbed her, forced her to lie on the ground while they cut her baby out of her womb, and ultimately caused the deaths of both Rebecca and her unborn child before leaving her body in the forest.

Carey described the case as one of “premeditated torture and murder,” alleging that the Bartholomews “created a plan” and “conducted research” beforehand.

Both Cortney and Bradly face one count each of first-degree murder, felony murder, torture, conspiracy to commit torture, assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage or stillbirth, and conspiracy to commit that assault. Each of those six charges carries a potential life sentence. They are also charged with unlawful imprisonment and removal of a dead body.

Search teams spent weeks looking for Park before a body matching her description was found on Nov. 25 in the Manistee National Forest. An autopsy later confirmed the remains were hers. The baby she had been due to deliver three days earlier was no longer in her womb.

On the same day Park’s body was discovered, authorities arrested her fiancé, 43-year-old Richard Falor, and her 21-year-old sister, Kimberly Park.

Falor appeared in court the next day and was arraigned on two counts of delivering methamphetamine. His bail was set at $1 million. Kimberly was arraigned on charges of tampering with evidence, lying to a police officer and filing a false report, though officials have not publicly detailed what those charges stem from. Her bail was set at $750,000.

At their initial court appearances, there was no suggestion that either Falor or Kimberly had participated in Rebecca’s killing. All four defendants — Cortney, Bradly, Falor and Kimberly — are currently being held at the Wexford County Jail. Public defenders representing them did not respond to requests for comment, and none of the four has yet entered a plea.

In the days surrounding Rebecca’s disappearance, Cortney was active on social media. On the day her daughter was due to give birth, she posted a video on Facebook titled in part, “My alibi of where I was the night my daughter came up missing.”

The video shows only a black screen with audio. In it, Cortney’s 14-year-old son says, “She gave me my meds at about 8:40, I don’t remember a lot as I just said, but she was there when I went to bed and she was also there when I woke up the next day. I know that she never goes out and about when I’m sleeping just because she doesn’t like to drive at night.”

Cortney also accused Kimberly of being involved in Rebecca’s disappearance, both before and after her daughter’s body was recovered, in private messages and during an interview on the true crime podcast Steph’s Case Files.