In one of the most harrowing incidents to shock America, a mother has been convicted of murdering her 28-day-old daughter by microwaving her for two minutes. China Arnold, aged 31, committed the unthinkable act following an altercation with her boyfriend regarding the paternity of their child, prosecutors revealed.
The medical community was left aghast upon examining the infant Paris’s body, which succumbed after her internal temperature soared to fatal levels. “She died because she was overheated,” declared Dr. Marcella Fierro, the now-retired chief medical examiner from Virginia.
“She was cooked.”
Arnold, hailing from Dayton, Ohio, narrowly escaped the death sentence but received a life imprisonment verdict in 2011 on an aggravated murder charge. Testimonies from several psychologists indicated that Arnold possessed average intelligence and exhibited no signs of mental illness.
It is believed that Paris perished instantly once her body temperature hit the critical range of 107 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit, reports the Express US.
The day following the gruesome act, Arnold took Paris to the hospital, where she was declared dead. Her arrest came in November 2006.
Despite the absence of external burn injuries, the medical examiner concluded hyperthermia as the cause of death, indicating severe internal heat damage.
Arnold’s criminal history predates this atrocity. She had previously been found guilty of abduction in 2000 and forgery in 2002.
Subsequently, she was sentenced to five years of probation for each offence, as per records from the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
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Arnold had faced trial three times for the murder of her baby daughter before being convicted, with each trial carrying the potential for a death sentence as capital punishment has been legal in Ohio since 1974. Her first trial concluded in a mistrial in February 2008 when a new witness emerged just before closing arguments.
Seven months later, her second trial resulted in a guilty verdict and a life sentence, but this was overturned by an appeals court. In May 2011, her third and final trial ended with a guilty verdict for aggravated murder and a life sentence without parole after the jury unanimously decided against the death penalty.
Arnold, who is also mother to three boys, has been held at the Ohio Reformatory for Women since September 2008.
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