They Died 81 Days Apart- The Story of Desiree McCartney and Nathaniel Ritz
They Died 81 Days Apart- The Story of Desiree McCartney and Nathaniel Ritz
Her little girl had suddenly fallen unconscious and she had never woken back up. This was only a few months ago, and now the paramedics were back at their house again, but this time because her stepson had stopped breathing. Two babies within months of each other gone. What was it that was really going on here, and who was responsible?
The case I have for you today is not just about one child, but two children who died 81 days apart from one another in the same house. This is the story of Desiree McCartney and Nathaniel Ritz.
Desiree McCartney was born on May 17th, 2014, in Columbus, Indiana. Her mom is named Christina McCartney, and her father is Gary McCartney. Desiree was a happy and loving little girl whose favorite things were dancing and singing, and she, of course, loved the movie Frozen. Desiree’s mother, Christina, had obtained full custody of her, along with her older brother, Nicholas Kedrowitz, and her younger sister, Abigail.
Christina McCartney, along with her three children, moved in with her fiancé, Steven Ritz, and his son, Nathaniel Ritz, in 2016. Nathaniel Ritz was Steven’s biological son, who he had full custody of. It was said that Nathaniel’s mother was not in his life, as she had used methamphetamine during her pregnancy with him. Nathaniel was born on August 4th, 2016, in Jefferson, Indiana. He was a happy and silly baby, but not much else is known about him sadly. And since Nathaniel’s mother wasn’t in his life, Christina had stepped up and taken the place as mom for Nathaniel.
Now, Christina, Steven, and their blended family—including four children—lived in Osgood, Indiana, at 238 Maple Street. At the time of this story, Nicholas was 13, Desiree was about to turn two, Abigail was one, and Nathaniel was around 11 months old. Since Nicholas was much older than the other three children, he often helped out with his siblings. Nick would always act as a caring and protective big brother. But not all was well in the house. In fact, Christina’s fiancé, Steven, was not known to be a good man; she would even say that he could be abusive towards the children sometimes. So it was a bit of a tumultuous home, especially with four children, three of them being under the age of two.
On May 1st, 2017, a 911 call was made from the family’s home requesting emergency services. Steven had made the call, and he said that there was an unresponsive child. When the first responders arrived at the scene, they immediately tended to the little girl, who was unconscious and not breathing. She was also covered in vomit. It was 23-month-old Desiree McCartney.
Desiree had been taken by ambulance to Margaret Mary Community Hospital in Batesville, and then, due to the severity of her condition, she was transported to the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati. But unfortunately, after several days on life support, Desiree died on May 6th, 2017. So police, of course, wanted to speak with Christina and see what had happened.
Christina told police that she had arrived home that night around 6:45 p.m. When she had come in the door, she was met by her son Nick, who was carrying unconscious Desiree wrapped in a towel. He told her he thought there was something wrong with her, maybe she was sick, because she wouldn’t talk to him. Christina tried to wake up Desiree by calling her name and shaking her, but she didn’t respond to either. So immediately, Christina started to perform CPR and told Steven to call 911.
So of course, police also wanted to speak with Nick, as he was the one who was with Desiree at the time. He told police that night it was one of his chores to bathe his siblings. He brought Desiree into the bathroom for her bath first, where he says that she undressed herself and got into the bathtub all on her own. He says when she was in the tub, she had thrown up a few times, so he needed to go get her baby wipes. He left the room with Desiree still in the tub and said he was gone for about 5 minutes before he returned. When he returned to the bathroom, that’s when Nick said he found Desiree face down in the water and unresponsive.
When an autopsy was performed on Desiree’s little body the following day, the coroner did not find any evidence that she had drowned. But the autopsy did reveal that Desiree had experienced a prolonged period of lack of oxygen to her brain. And though this was discovered, her manner of death was listed as undetermined.
State Police investigators started looking into the toddler’s death, as did child welfare workers with the Indiana Department of Child Services. Nick was at first removed from the home, but then a judge allowed him to return during the ongoing investigation. And police’s investigation into Desiree’s death was still ongoing when, on July 20th, 2017, 911 was again called to the house with another unresponsive child.
This time, when paramedics got there, they found 11-month-old Nathaniel Ritz to be unresponsive. It was only 81 days after Desiree had been taken to the hospital. Nathaniel, like his sister, was taken to Margaret Mary Hospital, where he was pronounced dead early the next morning.
Police were told that the family had eaten supper that night, then watched TV together. Around 11:00 p.m., Christina asked Nick to take Nathaniel to bed, since the two of them shared a bedroom. Nick did as he was told, but only a few minutes later, he came out of his room holding Nathaniel, telling his mom that something was wrong. He said that he noticed that Nathaniel had not been moving while he was in the middle of doing his chores, and when Nick went over to the little boy, he said he was cold and pale.
An autopsy was also conducted on Nathaniel, and his death was also listed as undetermined. A second investigation was now opened, this time into the death of Nathaniel Ritz. After Nathaniel’s death, the Indiana Department of Child Services placed Abigail in a foster home, and Nick went to live with his great aunt and uncle, Candice and Bob Barker, who also lived in Osgood.
A few months went by, and then in September of that year, the investigations—which had already been focused on the people who lived in the house—began to focus more sharply on Nick. Not only had he been there both times, but Christina had also called the police on September 5th and told them that Nick had just recently mutilated a kitten. He had mutilated it so badly that it had to be put out of its misery afterwards.
Nick had taken a kitten that Bob and Candice owned into the basement where he proceeded to torture it. Candice said that the kitten suffered a puncture-like wound to the head and also had deep open wounds to its body, enough so that some of its organs were coming out. Nick admitted to his great aunt that the kitten had scratched him, so he had gotten angry and squeezed it too hard. And when it was realized that the kitten was so badly injured that it needed to be put down, Nick asked his uncle if he could go with him so that he could see the kitten’s brains be splattered everywhere.
Yeah, that’s horrifying. He mutilated that kitten so badly its organs were hanging out. No wonder why the investigators were zoomed in on him at that point. Candice described her nephew as having anger issues, and he was also very self-centered. So Candice, who has diabetes as well as a prosthetic leg, told investigators that Nick said to her, with all of her health problems, maybe she just needed to die. And Nick had also made similar statements about the couple’s elderly dog.
After this incident, psych evaluations were requested by the police to be done on Nick, Christina, and Steven. During Nick’s evaluation, he talked about large knives, fires, and setting his siblings free from Satan, but he would not answer the question of whether or not he was responsible for both of his siblings’ deaths, though I think it’s kind of obvious at this point.
On December 13th, 2017, the lead detective from Desiree’s case and the lead detective from Nathaniel’s case went to speak with Nick in his aunt and uncle’s home. During that visit, Nick actually pulled them aside and said he needed to speak with them. He said that he had recently had dreams about the babies, and he started talking about saving Desiree and Nathaniel from hell and the chains of fire. Nick said he had help from an angel to set his siblings free. He also said that he had a conversation with God about Desiree and Nathaniel, but he couldn’t share it with investigators because he had promised God that he wouldn’t.
When Nick was asked to talk about what had happened to Desiree, at first he said that he couldn’t remember. But when asked about Nathaniel, Nick said that he had placed the boy in the bottom bunk bed, placed a blanket on his head, and pushed down. And when asked about Desiree again, Nick said that he had helped her out of the bath and then put a towel over her head, smothering her so that he could set her free to heaven, is what Nick said.
Nick told them that he knew Desiree was dead when she had gone limp and her face had turned blue. The teen was crying throughout, and he told the detectives that he did not want his siblings to live in the hell that he had to live in, so that’s why he had suffocated them. When investigators asked him what hell was to him, he replied: “Chores”.
Nick then asked the detectives if they had seen the list of daily chores that he was required to do. They said that they were aware of the long chore list that he had. He said he had to protect them from Steven Ritz because he did not want them to go through what he went through. Nick’s Uncle Jeff had actually recently told investigators about a time that Steven had given Nick a bloody nose.
After learning this information from Nicholas’s statements and determining that they were consistent with the autopsy findings, both Nathaniel and Desiree’s cause of death was amended to asphyxia by smothering. But for some reason, it wasn’t until August 28th of 2018 that Nick was arrested for the murder of his sister Desiree and his brother Nathaniel. Though ever since Nick had confessed to killing his siblings back in December, Christina had committed him to LaRue Carter Hospital.
So Nick had originally been charged as a juvenile; however, they decided to bring his case to adult court in early September. The state of Indiana allows juveniles as young as 12 to be tried as adults depending on their crime and with enough probable cause. Five doctors evaluated Nicholas, and three of them said that he was not competent to stand trial. The other two said that he was, but the Ripley County judge sided with the minority and ruled that Nick could and would face a jury. One of these doctors had diagnosed Nick with antisocial personality disorder and said that Nick was a lifelong danger. He was also given an IQ test, to which he only scored an 84. And until his trial date, Nick was held in a Dearborn County Juvenile Detention Center in Lawrenceburg. Nicholas was facing up to 65 years for each of the murders.
Christina McCartney went on the Dr. Phil show on December 12th, 2018, to speak about what had happened to her family, and she also defended her son:
“My son Nick was definitely a dream child. He was the most helpful, most exciting, full-of-life type of child. His siblings were his life. Nick and Desiree were very close. He would sit and read books to them; he would sing to them. The state police questioned my son, and according to them, Nick confessed to harming the children. He indicated that the children passed due to suffocation. According to the police officers, my son expressed to them that he ended the children’s lives because he wanted them to end the hell that they were living in. Nicholas was arrested 3 months ago. The current charges on him are two murders. The prosecutor just wants to throw my son in jail. No one is standing up for Nicholas, so I have to. I want people to understand that my son is not a monster.”
And Christina said that she had never seen the evil in her son until after this had happened. She also tried to claim that Nick’s stepfather, Steven, had directed him to kill the children. Christina said that Steven had told her son that if he did not kill the two children, he would kill Nick himself, and that’s why Nick did it.
Right, his trial was originally scheduled for February 18th, 2020; however, it was postponed until August 16th, 2021. It lasted an entire week. Candace Barker got on the stand and said that Nick was like a grandson to her. She told the court that he had actually confessed to her that he had taken the lives of the two children. She testified that she believed Nick had four different personalities, and one of them was very bad and absolutely capable of murder. In fact, Nick had told his great-aunt that this personality was a bad one and she didn’t want to see it. He had also told Candice that he wanted to get up in front of the church and give his confession about killing Nathaniel and Desiree, but instead, he just went to the altar and prayed for 10 to 15 minutes. That would have been a very shocked church!
Candice also said that when Nick had been sent to live with them, he thought that he was there just to do chores. She also said that Nick was very confused and didn’t know reality from fiction. When she had raised her voice at him one time to go to his room, he hid in the basement, and she later found him down there curled up in a fetal position, keeping saying: “Don’t hit me, don’t hit me.”
Now, Candice had been a teacher, and she had taught children with special needs for many years. Given her experience, she believed that Nick was high functioning but lacked the typical verbal skills of a 13-year-old. She also said that he didn’t sleep well, had lots of night terrors, and would exaggerate everything. Candice also said that Nick didn’t seem to realize that the children’s lives he had taken would never come back. Candice said that it had actually hit Nick like a ton of bricks that Desiree and Nathaniel would never be coming back.
Candice went on to say that Nick never said he didn’t do it, but he did change his story multiple times while he lived with her. So in late August, after 6 hours of deliberation, the jury found Nicholas guilty for the murders of Desiree McCartney and Nathaniel Ritz. He was handed down two 50-year sentences—one for Nathaniel’s murder and one for Desiree’s murder—to be served consecutively, for a total of 100 years.
Desiree McCartney’s funeral was held on May 11th, 2017, at the Porter-Oliger-Pearson Funeral Home in Greensburg. And unfortunately, given the circumstances, there are no details as far as Nathaniel’s funeral.
Well, thank you for listening to all of Desiree and Nathaniel’s stories today. I don’t understand how nobody could have seen the evil that lurked inside of Nicholas prior to the killings. He killed two innocent children as well as a kitten, all within 81 days of each other, but there were no signs prior to this. It just doesn’t make sense. And if you look at Nicholas’s old Facebook account, you’ll see that there’s a lot of pictures of him and Desiree. He really seemed like he loved his sister, but maybe in his warped mind, this was somehow protecting her from going through the awful things that he had already been through at 13 years old. But what do you think?
