A Missouri mother has been accused of baking her newborn daughter to death in an oven after allegedly mistaking it for a crib.
Mariah Thomas, 26, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after one-month-old Za’Riah Mae was found dead with “burn injuries,” according to an arrest warrant.
Police were called to the mother’s home in Kansas City after receiving reports that a child was not breathing on Friday, the day after Thomas’ birthday.
When they arrived, they found the baby covered in burns, with her “blackened” clothes melted into her diaper.
A devastated friend of Thomas told DailyMail.com that Za’Riah was a “very happy” baby, who “smiled all the time”.
Mariah Thomas, 26, has been accused of killing her baby Za’Riah Mae by putting her in an oven.
The one-month-old baby was found in her Kansas City home with burn marks all over her body, according to Thomas’ arrest warrant.
Thomas told police she had “accidentally placed her in the oven instead of the crib,” the charging document states.
He also suggested that Thomas’ mental health may have played a role in the tragedy.
“From what I know, Mariah had mental problems and she didn’t have the mentality of an adult, she thought like a child,” the friend said, adding that she last spoke to the mother on Monday.
Za’Riah’s grandfather told police that he received a call from her mother around 1:00 pm on Friday in which she told him that “something was wrong with the baby and that she needed to come home immediately.”
Upon returning home he immediately began smelling smoke and found Za’Riah dead in her crib.
Thomas told her she had “accidentally” put it in the oven, according to court documents.
Za’Riah was discovered by police in a car seat inside her home with “apparent thermal injuries to various parts of her body.”
He was wearing a onesie over a diaper that appeared to have melted and was “very dirty, possibly burned.”
A charred baby blanket was also discovered and taken as evidence.
Police responded to reports that a girl was not breathing and found her dead in her car seat.
Thomas’ social media posts portrayed her as a loving mother, but also suggested she felt isolated.
Thomas was transported to police headquarters for an interview in which she invoked her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
But she consented to detectives taking her blood and accessing data on her phone.
Thomas’ social media portrays her as a loving mother, who referred to her daughter as her “princess.”
In a Facebook post, she expresses her desire to be “the best mother I can be to my beautiful daughter.”
But in a disturbing post made just weeks before the tragedy, Thomas complained that no one was looking out for her.
“The women claim they are my friends and never check up on me or Za’Riah,” he wrote on January 20.
Thomas is currently being held at the Jackson County Detention Center.