A Mother’s Crime: ‘She Was Cooked’ – The Chilling Case of a Baby Killed in a Microwave
Photo by Dayton Daily News
In one of America’s most horrifying cases, China Arnold, a mother from Dayton, Ohio, was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for the murder of her 28-day-old daughter, Paris. Arnold, 31, was found guilty of putting her newborn in a microwave for two minutes in 2005, causing her tragic and gruesome death.
Prosecutors revealed that Arnold’s actions stemmed from a fight with her boyfriend over the biological father of the baby. The result of that argument ended with Arnold placing little Paris in the microwave, where her body was fatally overheated. Medical experts were left horrified by the case. “She died because she was overheated,” testified Dr. Marcella Fierro, a retired chief medical examiner for Virginia. “She was cooked.”
Doctors believe Paris died almost instantly when her internal body temperature soared to between 107 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the extreme heat, Paris did not suffer any external burns, but the medical examiner ruled her cause of death as hyperthermia, with high-heat internal injuries leading to her death.
Arnold avoided the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison for aggravated murder. Throughout the trial, several psychologists testified that Arnold showed no signs of mental illness and had average intelligence. Arnold took Paris to the hospital the day after the incident, where she was pronounced dead. She was arrested in November 2006.
This was not Arnold’s first time in trouble with the law. She had prior convictions, including abduction in 2000 and forgery in 2002, and had served probation for both crimes.
The path to her conviction was lengthy. Arnold was tried three times for her daughter’s murder. The first trial ended in a mistrial in 2008 when a new witness came forward during closing arguments. Her second trial resulted in a guilty verdict, but the conviction was overturned by an appeals court. Finally, in May 2011, a jury found Arnold guilty of aggravated murder. While she faced the possibility of the death penalty, the jury unanimously voted against it, sentencing her instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
China Arnold, who is also the mother of three boys, has been incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women since 2008, paying the price for one of the most chilling crimes in American history.
