A mom murdered her 28-day-old daughter by cooking her in a microwave for two minutes in one of America’s most chilling cases.
China Arnold, 31, put her newborn Paris in the microwave after a fight with her boyfriend over who was the biological father, prosecutors said.
Horrified medical experts were left deeply disturbed after examining the body of Paris, who died when her body temperature reached a critical level.
“She died because she was overheated,” said Dr. Marcella Fierro, a retired chief medical examiner for Virginia. “She was cooked.”
Arnold, from Dayton, Ohio, avoided the death penalty but was jailed for life on a charge of aggravated murder in 2011.
Several psychologists testified that she was of average intelligence and showed no signs of mental illnesses.
Doctors believe Paris died immediately after her body temperature reached between 107 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit.
Arnold then took Paris to the hospital the next day, where she was pronounced dead. She was arrested in November 2006.
While the baby did not suffer any external burn marks, the medical examiner ruled her cause of death to be hyperthermia, meaning that she suffered high-heat internal injuries to her body.
This was not the first time that Arnold was convicted of a crime.
She was convicted of abduction in 2000 and of forgery in 2002, after which she was placed probation for five years in both cases, according to jail records in the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
Arnold had been tried three times for her baby daughter’s murder before her conviction, with the death penalty a possibility each time given that capital punishment is legal in Ohio since 1974.
Her first trial ended in a mistrial in February 2008, after a new witness came forward just before closing arguments.
Her second trial ended in a guilty verdict and a life sentence seven months later, but an appeals court overturned the conviction.
Her third and final trial in May 2011 ended in a guilty verdict for aggravated murder and a life sentence without the possibility of parole, after a jury reached a unanimous decision to not vote for the death penalty.
Arnold, who is also the mother of three boys, has been incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women since September 2008.