Microwave baby killer convicted

A jury will decide if China Arnold should face the death penalty

A US court in Dayton, Ohio, has convicted a mother of murdering her one-month-old daughter by burning her to death in a microwave oven.

China Arnold, 28, showed no emotion when the jury announced its guilty verdict, only lowering her head.

The prosecution said that Arnold had killed her daughter, Paris Talley, in 2005 after a fight with her boyfriend.

The jury will reassemble next Tuesday to decide if Arnold, convicted of aggravated murder, should face death.

Officials investigating the case said Paris Talley had suffered high-heat internal burns but had no external marks.

Prosecutors said that the baby's DNA had been found inside the microwave in Arnold's apartment.

Arnold's cellmate told the court that she had confessed to putting her daughter in the microwave and switching it on, because she was afraid that her boyfriend would leave her if he discovered that he was not the baby's father.

The defence team said that there was evidence that somebody else was responsible for Paris Talley's death.

An eight-year-old boy told the court he had seen another boy walk into the kitchen of a nearby apartment, heard the microwave being switched on and had later seen the burned baby in the oven.

However, the boy's mother said they lived some distance away and that they were not in Arnold's apartment complex when Paris Talley died.

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