JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A grandmother was being questioned Tuesday after her dead granddaughter was found inside a heated oven in a Mississippi town.
Bolivar County Sheriff Kelvin Williams told local news outlets that the 20-month-old girl also had been stabbed when she was found dead Monday night in Shaw.
The grandmother hasn't been charged but Williams described her as being in custody. Officials haven't named her or the toddler.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said officials are still investigating the cause of the girl's death, as well as when the girl died and whether that was before she was placed in the oven. Her body has been sent to the state Crime Lab in Pearl for an autopsy.
Williams said a relative found the girl Monday night and called police in Shaw. Police in turn called the sheriff's department and others for assistance.
The child was found inside a beige frame house on the north end of Shaw, a town of 2,000 residents about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Jackson in Mississippi's Delta region. Police tape still surrounded part of the house Tuesday morning, while a stroller, a high chair, and a trash barrel of toys including a scooter sat near the curb in front of the house.
"I have been in law enforcement a long time and one of the hardest things that I have experienced is when you see a child as a victim," Williams told reporters. "It's trying for us to come upon a scene and see a victim such as this."
A woman in Greenville, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Shaw, pleaded guilty to cooking her 3-year-old son to death in an oven in March 2011. Terri Robinson pleaded guilty to murder in 2012 in the death of Tristan Robinson. Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson said an autopsy found Robinson died from heat injuries sustained in the electric oven.
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