How? Mariah Thomas Kansas City mom burns baby to death after mistakenly putting her in oven instead of crib as family, friends, lawyers and social media seek an explanation.
Is it even possible? A Missouri mom burned her one month baby to death after telling cops she accidentally put her in the oven after mistaking it for a crib.
Responding police described arriving to a ‘gruesome scene’ upon arriving at the Kansas City home of Mariah Thomas, where they found the woman’s one month old baby, Za’Riah Mae badly burnt and not breathing on Friday, Fox 4 reported.
Kansas City Police responded to the home just before 1:30 Friday afternoon, according to the Kansas City Star. Officers found the baby in a car seat near the front door with apparent burn injuries. The Kansas City Fire Department declared the little girl dead at the scene, according to an arresting affidavit.
How did mix-up happen?
The baby’s grandfather told police that Thomas called him at about 1 p.m. on Friday and said that ‘something was wrong with the baby and that he needed to return home immediately,’ according to KSHB. When he arrived, he said he smelled smoke and found the baby dead in her crib.
The child’s grandmother told police she also received a call from Thomas at about the same time and that Thomas yelled ‘hysterically’ while on the phone.
Thomas told authorities she ‘was putting her child down for a nap, and accidentally placed the child in the oven instead of the crib.’
An arrest affidavit described ‘thermal injuries’ on the baby’s body and stated the infant was dressed in a onesie over a diaper. The clothing appeared to have melted onto the diaper. Officers described the clothing as ‘very dirty, possibly burned on the backside.’ They also found a blanket with ‘significant burn marks’ in the living room.
The affidavit did not offer an explanation as to how the mother came to mistake the oven for the baby’s crib?
‘the best mother I can be to my beautiful daughter.’
A friend of Thomas’ told the dailymail that Za’Riah was a ‘very bubbly’ baby, who was ‘smiling all the time’.
The friend suggested mental health may have been at play leading to the mom mistakenly placing the child in the oven instead of her crib.
‘Mariah had mental issues from what I know and didn’t have the mindset of a adult, she thought like a child,’ the friend said.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said ‘our hearts are weighted by the loss of this precious life.’
‘We trust the criminal justice system to respond appropriately to these awful circumstances,’ he told media.
Thomas’ social media posts present her as a doting mom, who referred to her daughter as her ‘princess’.
In one Facebook post she states her desire to be, ‘the best mother I can be to my beautiful daughter.’
But in one haunting post made just weeks before the tragedy Thomas complained that nobody was looking out for her.
‘Mfs claim they my friend by don’t never check up on me or Za’Riah,’ she wrote on January 20.
Was it postpartum psychosis?
Thomas, who lives at the home with her parents, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child leading to death.
Court records do not yet show if Thomas has an attorney, and no phone listing for Thomas could be found.
And then there were these comments that appeared on social media that caught this author’s attention. See what you think?
