Inset: Rebecca Park (Wexford County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Kimberly Park and her attorney at a May 22 hearing in Michigan (WPBN/WTOM).
In a shocking turn of events, Michigan authorities have decided to drop charges against Kimberly Park, the sister of a pregnant woman who was allegedly murdered in a secluded forest by her own parents. The parents are accused of the horrific act of cutting the baby from the victim’s body after the murder.
Kimberly Park had faced multiple charges, including tampering with evidence, lying to police during a violent crime investigation, and filing a false police report. She was initially the only individual charged in connection with the tragic death of her 22-year-old sister, Rebecca Park, which occurred in November 2025 within the Manistee National Forest in Boon Township. This small community is situated approximately 35 miles south of Traverse City.
On Friday, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office confirmed to Law & Crime and Court TV that a judge dismissed all charges against Kimberly Park. However, the possibility remains that prosecutors could refile these charges at a later date, a point highlighted by the AG’s office.
Local media outlets, Traverse City’s NBC affiliate WPBN and Cheboygan’s ABC affiliate WTOM, were the first to report on this development, though they noted that no explanation was provided for the dismissal of the charges.
Meanwhile, the criminal investigation continues to focus on Rebecca Park’s parents, 40-year-old Cortney Bartholomew and 47-year-old Bradly Bartholomew. According to previous reports by Law & Crime, the Bartholomews are accused of brutally stabbing Rebecca multiple times in the back. In a chilling detail, it is alleged that after the attack, Rebecca’s mother instructed her to lie back on the forest floor.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the Bartholomews allegedly stabbed Rebecca Park several times in the back. While the victim sat on the forest floor, her mother reportedly told her to lie back.
“Your baby is gonna die,” 40-year-old Cortney Bartholomew told her 22-year-old daughter, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit provided to WPBN/WTOM.
With Bartholomew’s husband holding a knife to Park’s throat, she allegedly cut her daughter’s stomach and removed the baby boy, who was not breathing. Bradly Bartholomew then allegedly slit Rebecca Park’s throat. In total, she was stabbed more than a dozen times, the affidavit stated.
Cortney Bartholomew and Bradly Bartholomew took the baby to their truck and tied Park to the back of the vehicle, cops wrote. They then allegedly drove the truck some 20 feet down a bank with Park’s body behind. Per cops, the Bartholomews then covered Park’s body with some leaves and drove back to their home, where they tried to perform CPR on the baby.
Once those attempts failed, Bradly Bartholomew placed the baby’s body in a cooler and drove to a nearby dumpster, where he discarded the remains, according to the affidavit.
This all occurred on the evening of Nov. 3 in Wexford County, which is in northern Michigan. Park, who was 38 weeks pregnant, was reported missing the next day. On Nov. 25, searchers found her body near the hiking trail in the Manistee National Forest. The trail where the body was found is roughly 2.5 miles from the Bartholomew home.
Authorities have yet to recover the baby’s remains.
Cops arrested the Bartholomews on Dec. 1 on charges including murder, torture, conspiracy to commit torture and assault on a pregnant person. The nearly 20-page arrest affidavit says that the Bartholomews initially denied involvement before pointing the finger at each other.
Cortney Bartholomew claimed she wasn’t there and said her husband admitted to her that he killed Park.
“I slit her f—ing throat, b— deserved it,” she claimed her husband told her.
She asserted her husband killed the victim because Park’s boyfriend turned Bradly Bartholomew in to police last year for not registering as a sex offender. But cops told Cortney Bartholomew that would not be a motive to cut out the baby.
Confronted with the facts, Cortney Bartholomew allegedly confessed. She lured Park to her husband’s truck and he held a knife to her throat and forced her inside, the affidavit stated.
Bradly Bartholomew told cops his wife cut Park’s infant from her stomach because she wanted another baby to raise on her own.
During a bond hearing on Dec. 2, prosecutors unveiled the horrifying circumstances of Park’s alleged murder.
“This is a case of premeditated torture and murder,” said Wexford County Prosecutor Johanna Carey, according to a courtroom report from MLive. “These two individuals created a plan, conducted research. Mr. Bartholomew brought Rebecca to their home, forced her into another vehicle and took her into the woods where they stabbed her, forced her to lie on the ground while they cut her baby out, ultimately caused her death and the death of the baby.”
Added Carey: “This is frankly evil personified.”
Rebecca Park was last seen alive getting into a vehicle by her adoptive mother outside her home near Cadillac on Nov. 3 after she had just received $2,000 in an inheritance.
After cops found Park’s body, her fiance, Richard Falor, 43, was arrested on multiple drug charges. That’s also when Kimberly Park was charged. Falor still stands accused of two counts of delivering methamphetamine.
