Cocaine User Who Scalded Toddler With Boiling Water Convicted Of Murder

A cocaine user who scalded her 19-month-old child with boiling has been found guilty of murder by Nottingham Crown Court in the U.K.

Katie Crowder deliberately scalded her daughter Gracie with boiling water at their Mansfield home on March 6, reported BBC.

Dubbed "the evil child killer," Crowder delayed getting help as her child died. She even tried to cover her tracks and make her child's death look like an accident, reported Euro Weekly News.

Crowder told the police that she had filled a mop bucket with hot water to clean up the mess created by the family dog. However, she had to leave the bathroom to put some clothes in the washer.

According to Crowder, she didn't hear any noise from the bathroom when she stepped out. But when she returned, she found Gracie lying on the floor. She also said that the mop bucket had already been knocked over, flooding the floor with water.

Gracie suffered 65 percent of burns on her body. Her post-mortem report indicated that her death was due to "scalds and thermal burns from exposure to hot liquid."

Sally Howes QC, the prosecutor, said that the toddler had been left for at least half an hour. She also said that the severe and extensive injuries on the toddler's body could not have been caused by an accident.

Crowder used cocaine and watched the baby die before calling for help, the investigators found. Carrying Gracie in her arms, she hurried to her parents' house in the same neighborhood. When her mother came to the door, Crowder shouted, "She’s dead, she's dead!"

They took Gracie to the King's Mill Hospital, but the child was pronounced dead shortly after, reported Euro Weekly News.

Crowder was found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict on Dec. 8. Even though she denied the heinous act, she wept in the dock as she was convicted of murder, reported Nottinghamshire Live. Her sentence hearing is scheduled for Dec. 16.

The court played a recording of the emergency call made by Crowder's parents and their unsuccessful efforts to save the little girl. The parents said that Crowder sounded "panicked."

However, according to Howes, Gracie's death was not immediate. She also said that Crowder had taken time to "cover her tracks." "She knew what she had done, cleaning up, cleaning away, thinking of what she could possibly say as an explanation," she told the court.

Howes also told the jury that the presence of cocaine in Crowder's blood 4 hours later was an indication that Crowder took the drug in the hour before her daughter's death.

According to the experts in the trial, Gracie could have survived if she was taken to the hospital immediately. They also said that it would have taken Gracie "in the region of an hour" to succumb to her injuries and that she would have been "screaming."

Once the verdict was pronounced, Detective Chief Inspector Rob Routledge said that going to the post-mortem examination was "one of the most difficult things I've done."

"Nobody likes to think a parent can do that to their own child," Routledge said. "I welcome today's verdict that serves justice for Gracie. What her mother Crowder told her was absolutely horrific and I'm glad that she will now be jailed for this heinous crime," he told G News.