Microwave death case goes to jury

DAYTON (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Thursday in the case of a woman accused of killing her month-old daughter by burning her in a microwave oven.

Defendant China Arnold and her boyfriend had argued over whether he was the biological father, Assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Daniel Brandt said during closing arguments in the woman’s three-week retrial. The argument got so intense that Arnold bit her boyfriend’s lip and he slapped her, Brandt said.

Arnold later told a cellmate she put the infant in the microwave and turned it on because she was worried her boyfriend would leave her if he found out the child wasn’t his, Brandt said.

“She could have stopped it with one finger, but she didn’t,” he said. “We know she used that microwave as the instrument of death.”

Arnold, 28, of Dayton, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of aggravated murder in the 2005 death of Paris Talley and could face the death penalty if convicted. A judge declared a mistrial in Arnold’s first trial earlier this year.