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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Woman Who Broiled Daughter to Stay in Jail

(CN) — Alabama's parole board rejected an appeal for release by a woman convicted of putting her 14-month-old daughter into a hot oven in 2002.

The board rejected an early release for 40-year-old Melissa Wright of Millbrook after a hearing on Tuesday.

Wright pleaded guilty to attempted murder in 2003 after placing daughter Ashley Smith in a broiling oven at their home in Elmore County.

The girl survived and is now 15, but has endured dozens of operations for burns she received in the oven.

Smith asked the board to keep her mother in prison.

A prosecutor said Wright should be forced to serve her entire 25-year sentence.

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