Mother sentenced for placing infant in hot oven

WETUMPKA, Ala. -- A woman who put her infant daughter in a hot oven set on broil pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The child survived after her father heard her screams and rushed into the kitchen, but she suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of her body and still faces years of reconstructive surgery, said District Attorney Randall Houston.

Her mother, Melissa Wright, at first told investigators the 18-month-old girl fell from her arms as she was cooking, and that the child hit the oven door, rolled in and the oven door closed behind her.

Prosecutors had planned to argue at trial that Wright acted intentionally because she was jealous of the attention the child's father was paying to the infant. She didn't suffer from any mental illness, Houston said, "She is just mean."

Wright, 27, of Coosada, pleaded guilty Thursday in Elmore County Circuit Court. Her daughter remains in the care of relatives.