John Jefferson
Insets, left to right: Becky Ann Vreeland (OKC Police Dept.) and Riley Nolan (Memorial Park Funeral Home & Cemetery). Background: The home where Vreeland killed Riley (KOCO)
A 63-year-old grandmother in Oklahoma will likely spend the remainder of her days behind bars for killing her 3-year-old granddaughter and leaving the child’s body to decompose in a trash can for several days. Cleveland County District Court Judge Lynne McGuire ordered Becky Ann Vreeland to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility for the 2022 slaying of young Riley Lynn Nolan, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Authorities accused Vreeland of beating Riley to death, leaving indentations in the bathroom wall they say were “the size of a child’s head.”
Vreeland last week pleaded no contest to one count of first-degree murder in connection with Riley’s death. Under Oklahoma state law, a life sentence is considered to be 45 years. Due to the severity of the crime, Vreeland must complete at least 85% of her sentence, meaning she must serve more than 38 years before she may be eligible for parole, at which point she would be 99 years old.
A single count of desecration of a human corpse was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
According to the initial news release from the Oklahoma City Police Department, OCPD officers at about 2:22 p.m. on June 21, 2022, responded to a “trouble unknown call” at a home located in the 600 block of SW151 Street. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders learned there was a deceased child at the residence.
“Officers found the body of three-year-old Riley Nolan in a residential trash receptacle at the home,” the release states. “The child had obvious signs of trauma to her body.”
Investigators said that at the time of the incident, young Riley was under the care of her grandmother, identified in the release as Vreeland. Police transported Vreeland to the department headquarters where she was interviewed and subsequently booked into the Cleveland County Jail on suspicion of murder.
Vreeland has maintained that her granddaughter’s death was a tragic accident, repeatedly claiming that Riley died after falling from a ladder in the backyard.
As previously reported, a homicide detective previously testified that Riley’s body was discovered inside a recycling bin right outside of Vreeland’s home. The bin also contained the little girl’s toys and had been covered with two blankets, one of which depicted characters from the Disney movie “Frozen.”
The detective explained that investigators located blood spatter throughout Vreeland’s home, including in the master bedroom, master bathroom, and several other areas of the home. A total of 28 swabs were taken from inside the home and analyzed, many of which came back positive for Riley’s DNA.
Additionally, the detective testified that when searching the master bathroom, police found two small, circular indentations in the wall which “appear to be the size of a child’s head.”
Vreeland told police that she regularly kept Riley’s toys in the recycling bin in the back of the house. She further claimed there was a pool ladder next to the bin, which she supposed Riley climbed only to fall off and die. The grandmother said she found Riley dead when she woke up the following morning.
However, it was Vreeland’s ex-husband — and Riley’s grandfather — who found the little girl’s already decomposing body in the bin three days after her death and called the police. Vreeland said she did not call authorities because she feared they would take her other grandchildren away from her.
Police said the ladder next to the recycling bin was missing its base and would immediately collapse if anyone tried to use it.
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