NewsNational News

Actions

Baby girl found dead in oven had been ‘stabbed and burned,’ Mississippi sheriff says

Posted at 4:28 PM, Oct 16, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-16 16:28:37-04

SHAW, Miss. — Mississippi officials are investigating after a girl was found dead inside a heated oven Monday.

The girl's grandmother has been taken into custody but not charged, Bolivar County Sheriff Kelvin Williams told local news outlets. He did not identify her, but said she would be facing some type of murder charge.

Police were called Monday night to a home on Martin Luther King Drive in the small city of Shaw, Williams said. There, officers found the body of the 20-month-old girl.

“The official cause (of death) is still under investigation, but authorities have reason to believe that the child was stabbed and burned," Williams told The Bolivar Commercial. "The child was found inside of the oven in the residence.”

Investigators took the body and evidence from the scene to the Mississippi Crime Lab. A full autopsy is scheduled to determine the cause of death.

Williams said a family member of the girl found her body and called police. He said the girl lived in the home.

Shaw, which is not far from the Arkansas border in northwest Mississippi, is home to about 2,000 people.