in one of The most horrible cases in the United StatesChina 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, resulting in her tragic and gruesome death.
Prosecutors revealed that Arnold’s actions arose from a fight with her boyfriend over the baby’s biological father. The result of that argument ended with Arnold placing little Paris in the microwave, where her body was fatally overheated. Medical experts were horrified by the case. “He died because he was too hot,” testified Dr. Marcella Fierro, Virginia’s retired chief medical examiner. “It 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 that the cause of his death was hyperthermia, with internal injuries from high temperatures leading to his death.
Arnold avoided the death penalty but was sentenced to life imprisonment for aggravated homicide. 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 the first time Arnold had been in trouble with the law. He had previous convictions, including kidnapping in 2000 and forgery in 2002, and had served probation for both crimes.
The road to his conviction was long. Arnold was tried three times for the murder of her daughter. The first trial ended in a mistrial in 2008, when a new witness was introduced during closing arguments. His 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 homicide. Although she faced the possibility of the death penalty, the jury voted unanimously against it and sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
China Arnold, also a mother of three, has been incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women since 2008, paying the price for one of the most chilling crimes in American history.