Sentence upheld in '05 oven death

DAYTON — An appeals court upheld the conviction of an Ohio woman found guilty of burning her baby daughter to death in a microwave oven.

Ohio’s 2nd District Court of Appeals yesterday affirmed the May 2011 conviction of 33-year-old China Arnold.

Her trial attorney, Jon Paul Rion, said they will appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.

“We remain true believers and will not give up the fight until we see justice served and she is released,” Rion said.

Attorney Christopher Thompson, who represented Arnold in her appeal, did not immediately return a call to his office yesterday.

A Montgomery County jury convicted Arnold of killing her 4-week-old daughter, Paris Talley, by putting her in a microwave in 2005. Arnold was sentenced to life in prison.

It was Arnold’s third trial. The first one ended in a mistrial. She was found guilty in the second, but the appeals court reversed it.

Prosecutors have said Arnold put the baby in the microwave and turned it on after a fight with her boyfriend, Terrell Talley, the baby’s father.

Rion had argued that someone else was responsible, and much of the evidence pointed to Talley.

Talley testified that Arnold told him that “I killed my baby,” and that the infant would still be alive if he hadn’t been unfaithful to her.

Rion said that Arnold only meant that she failed as a mother by allowing the crime to happen, not that she killed her child.

Medical experts said the baby died after her temperature reached 107 to 108 degrees and that she probably was in the microwave for more than two minutes.