Man Pleads Guilty To Throwing, Killing Girlfriend’s Baby Rydholm Told Detectives 9-Month-Old Girl Was ‘Being Fussy’

Against the advice of his attorney, Michael Rydholm pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing his girlfriend’s baby last fall.

“I’m responsible for causing injuries to Chelsey York which resulted in her accidental death,” a tearful Rydholm said in Spokane County Superior Court.

He was charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 3 assault, which occurred while Rydholm was baby-sitting the 9-month-old for his girlfriend, Dannette York.

Rydholm, 24, told detectives the baby was “being fussy” while he tried to watch a Mariners game on television, Deputy Prosecutor Dawn Cortez said.

When shaking her didn’t work, Rydholm finally took Chelsey “by her straps, walked her down the hallway and flung her into the room,” Cortez said.

“At that point she did stop crying,” she said.

Defense attorney John Rodgers, however, said he disputes “every one of those facts” and told the judge he urged his client not to plead guilty as charged.

“I don’t think we know the whole story,” Rodgers said. “I’m not sure we know what happened.”

A trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning.

“(Rydholm) wanted to take responsibility for this I guess,” Rodgers said after the hearing. “I’m a bit confused but it’s what he wanted.”

Chelsey’s father, Doak York, called the guilty plea “the easy way out.”

“I just hope he has to listen to what we have to say and has to sit through our grief and hear it all,” York said. “I don’t want his guilty plea to let him weasel out of this.”

Dannette York declined to comment. She had been dating Rydholm about six months before the assault and “considered herself his fiancee,” Cortez said.

Shortly after his arrest, Rydholm posted a $150,000 bond and was released from jail. A judge, however, sent him back after learning Rydholm made harassing telephone calls to Dannette York and threatened to flee. His bail was upped to $500,000.

While in jail, Rydholm then started accusing his estranged wife, Kari Rydholm, of being the one who assaulted Chelsey, Cortez said. He later admitted that wasn’t true.

Rydholm also “faked symptoms of a psychiatric disorder…to be relieved of taking responsibility for this,” she said.

While Cortez spoke, Rydholm covered his face and sobbed quietly at the defense table.

She said she will ask for an exceptional sentence outside the 10- to 13-year standard range. Sentencing was set for June 13.

, DataTimes