Category: News Author : Steven Hodson Posted: January 11, 2009
Tags : Baby Andre, Louisiana
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Baby dies from being put in a dryer

No .. you read that right. Yesterday Arielle Smith, 19, was facing second degree murder charges in New Orleans Louisiana for putting five month old Andre Jenkins into a tumble dryer because he would not stop crying. Apparently he was disturbing her television time while she was babysitting Baby Andre along with her own 1-year old son and Baby Andre’s older brother.

Baby Andre died from a skull fracture and horrific burns caused by the 175C temperature inside the dryer

"She was trying to watch something on television," said Assistant District Attorney Amanda Calogero said.

"She put the two older kids in a room, and she put the baby in the dryer and turned it on."

Later Smith called the boy’s mother Brandy Dozier and told her Andre was not breathing.

Dozier had dropped her sons off at Smith’s home while she went to work.

Smith claimed she had spilt a pan of boiling water on him - but later confessed to putting the boy in the drier and turning it one.

Medical experts said the baby suffered second degree burns caused by the   scalding temperature inside the drier. The baby had burns on his feet, face, head, arms and legs.

He is thought to have been in the spinning drier for up to three minutes

Source: The Daily Mail

I wonder if Louisiana has the death penalty?

liquidskinn

oh I do hope she gets mugged somewhere, or placed in a dryer herself. she deserves it

StevenHodson

well chances are that when she ends up in jail and in general population she will wish that maybe she had gotten the death penalty. Inmates have a very low tolerance to baby killers.

ontarioemperor

I read something in the comments of a People You'll See in Hell post that indicates that Smith has spent at least some time in isolation. If so, then this could very well have been for her own protection.

StevenHodson

she's gonna need a lot of protection in jail or she may not see a court date

genieyclo

I wonder too, and if so, this deserves. Good G-d, what was this person thinking? And the excuse is just monstrous-I was watching TV.

ontarioemperor

I read this Andre Jenkins' story on my phone, sent out a couple of messages, then just sat there in shock for a couple of minutes. I'm printing out this story for my wife and daughter now. Unbelievable.

ontarioemperor

Steven, I did some additional research on this story, and it turns out that Arielle Smith can't get the death penalty. Although she was additionally charged with first degree murder when arrested after Andre Jenkins died on September 11, 2008, by September 12 the charge had been reduced to second degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

If this Yahoo Answer response is reliable (and it sounds legit, although I'm not a lawyer), a first degree murder charge in Louisiana requires premeditation, while a spur-of-the-moment decision would carry a second degree murder charge (unless some other circumstance is present).

While the inability to administer the death penalty could cause an outcry, what if Smith were brought to trial on a 1st degree murder charge and the jury, not finding enough evidence of premeditation, let her go free?

StevenHodson

I would predict that her time in jail isn't going to be an easy .. maybe that is some consolation .. not much but some

ontarioemperor

Now I'm wondering what happened to the woman who drowned her kids a few years back.

(Off-topic comment - this is my first use of Disqus from within Google Chrome. Seems to work nicely.)

Kat

Don't say 'i hope she gets put in a dryer'.
You just read an article on a BABY being put in there and saying its wrong, its no different for a human.
What this woman did was incredibly wrong, but the death penalty is too.
She'll get what she deserves, years in jail, without her baby son for the rest of her life.
Thats pain enough.

Father of 3

Every hear of "An eye for an eye"? With this economy, I think it's better to kill the baby killer, rather than spend millions keeping her alive. Killing a human who killed a baby is very different from killing a baby. The baby was a victim who could not defend it's self and and had no control over the situation. The human was a teen who was to busy watching the TV to deal with the crying kid that she was babysitting. Can you imagian the horror of paying for a babysitter, going on a date with your husband/boyfriend/friend, and then coming home to find out that the person you paid to protect your child decided to kill it because they didn't feel like dealing with him? Before you start saying what's right and what's wrong, try putting your self in the shoes of that kid's parents.

BillV

Hate to, but I have to agree with you. Our justice system is too flawed, our species too motivated by greed and emotion to make that kind of decision. Life behind bars? Fine. Hope she rots. Two wrongs make a right? Nope.

Also, when you said "human"..I hope you weren't saying babies are a different species??? LOL

BillV

Oh, and before "Father of 3" says anything, I have seven, thanks. And that's my point. If someone were to kill one of my children, my emotions would cause me to desire that person dead. I'd want to do it myself. Too many times, it's been discovered long after the execution that all the hate and indeed the sentence was directed at an unjustly accused person.

We're not logical enough as a species for that responsibility.

ontarioemperor

Bill, obviously this case raises issues that go well beyond the scope of this post. Some will be convinced of the correctness of the death penalty based upon the pain suffered by a victim or by relatives of the victim. By the same token, some will be convinced of the injustice of the death penalty based upon wrongful convictions, as you note.

ontarioemperor

Kat, just a minor correction - that was someone else's baby, not her own, that she killed. Not that it makes the crime any better or any worse, since a life was still lost.

norbie

hang the scum

holden boy

I remember maoris doing it to thier own child in New Zealand. This is in courts and she must have read it in papers. The name of the maori child is Nia Glassie

The tumble dryer that Nia Glassie was allegedly placed in reached 65C when turned on high, the High Court at Rotorua has heard. Electrician Malcolm Lofroth

jim

I've read over 20 articles about this one and yet there is no mugshot. Can anybody explain this?

ontarioemperor

Jim, if you want to see a picture of Arielle Smith, here is a MySpace profile for a woman name Ari from Harvey, Louisiana. The profile hasn't been updated since September 9 (Smith was taken into custody on September 11).

More importantly, pictures of Andre Jenkins can be found here.

enjoy0rs

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Mike Abundo

Death by dryer doesn't scale to teenagers. What's the best way to make Arielle feel what her victim felt?

joan

Her punishment? PUT HER IN THE DRYER !

lexi

i wish they would stick her in the dryer to see how it feels.i hope that she gets what she deserves

lindsay

kill that bitch

Fs

Right. It's perfectly normal for someone to get mad at a baby for interrupting their television time, only to make the moral decision to put the baby in a dryer.

Or wait, no. No it isn't. Normal people don't put babies in driers and turn them on. Stupid people forget babies in cars, or don't think about the fact that their car is sweltering when they return from an hour of shopping, etc.
Wait and watch. If they determine there's no mental problem with this girl and therefore she's just a stupidly sh!tty person, go for the slams.

And screw all you people and your high-and-mighty over a single dead baby.
How many of you go trumpeting about over the thousands of babies/children dying in other countries due to much more deterable reasons? Mm? And that's ok. Reply however you like. Give whatever reasoning you like. It'll absolve yourself from my finger pointing. You'll all still sleep tonight.

This world is screwwww~ed!

Baby dies from being put in a dryer

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