Murder Charges Against Baby-Microwaving Mom

Police Say Mother Microwaved Her Baby
28 Nov
Dayton, Ohio

A mother was arrested on suspicion of murdering her newborn daughter by putting the baby in a microwave oven. China Arnold, 26, was jailed Monday on a charge of aggravated murder, more than a year after she brought her dead month-old baby to a hospital.

What in the holy living fuck? What sort of deranged, psychotic, misanthropic animal would put a baby in a microwave?

"We have reason to believe, and we have some forensic evidence that is consistent with our belief, that a microwave oven was used in this death," said Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County coroner's office. He said the evidence included high-heat internal injuries and the absence of external burn marks on the baby, Paris Talley.

Arnold was arrested soon after the baby's death in August 2005, then was released while authorities investigated further. Betz said the case was difficult because "there is not a lot of scientific research and data on the effect of microwaves on human beings."

The death was ruled a homicide caused by hyperthermia, or high body temperature. The absence of external burns ruled out an open flame, scalding water or a heating pad as the cause, Betz said.

Arnold's lawyer, Jon Paul Rion, said his client had nothing to do with her child's death and was stunned when investigators told her that a microwave might have been involved.

"China--as a mother and a person--was horrified that such an act could occur," Rion said.

The night before the baby was taken to the hospital, Arnold and the child's father went out for a short time and left Paris with a baby sitter, Rion said. The mother didn't sense anything out of the ordinary until the next morning, when the child was found unconscious, Rion said.

Where was Mom? Was Mom at home with the child, the place where she should be? Would this have happened if Mom had been with the baby? Is she blaming this on the babysitter? I note that this article does not indicate any babysitter or other party is under investigation or has been charged.

Arnold has three other children.

In 2000, a Virginia woman was sentenced to five years in prison for killing her month-old son in a microwave oven. Elizabeth Renee Otte claimed she had no memory of cramming her son in the microwave and turning on the appliance in 1999. Experts said that Otte suffered from epilepsy and that her seizures were followed by blackouts.

If it's proven that Arnold did this, then the one and only option is a sentence of death. Now, true justice would be a death sentence replicating the circumstances of the death of the murdered child. Now that's punishment, the anticipation and building fear that would come to the condemned murderer, knowing that there would be no gradual sleep of lethal injection, no instantaneous death of hanging, but a seeminly interminable building of heat and indescribable pain to pass through before what would be regarded as the blessed relief of death. Now that would be justice, and although I know this will never happen, it's always something we can hope for.