A mother in the United States has been found guilty of murdering her baby daughter by cooking her in a microwave. China Arnold, 28, put one-month-old Paris Talley in the oven after a fight with her boyfriend.
A jury yesterday found her guilty of aggravated murder and she was remanded for sentencing, with the prospect that she could face the death penalty.
Arnold showed no reaction when the verdict was announced at a court in Dayton, Ohio, but wept as she was led from the dock. Relatives in the courtroom cried and covered their faces with their hands.
At the time of the murder in August 2005, Arnold, her four children and her then boyfriend, Terrell Talley, lived together in a flat on a housing complex in Dayton.
Arnold claimed someone else had killed the child. An eight-year-old boy told the court he saw another boy walk into the kitchen of a nearby apartment with the baby, heard the microwave go on, and later saw the burned baby in the oven.
But Paris's DNA was found inside a microwave in Arnold's apartment, prosecutors said. A forensic pathologist testified that the baby died after being in the microwave for more than two minutes.
Defence lawyer Jon Paul Rion said Arnold was too drunk to remember events on the night of the murder. She had a blood-alcohol level nearly four times the legal driving limit.
Arnold told a cellmate that she put the baby in the microwave because she feared her boyfriend would leave her if he found out the child was not his.
Jurors, who returned their verdict after eight hours' deliberation, will return on Tuesday to consider whether Arnold should face the death penalty.
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