DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Three family members of China Arnold testified Tuesday, Sept. 2, that Arnold was a loving mother who doted on her children.

"She was just ecstatic about having this girl," remembered her uncle John Cartwright, who saw her at a July 4 picnic when she was pregnant with Paris Talley.

Paris, born Aug. 2, 2005, died 28 days later after being burned in a microwave oven. Her mother, Arnold, was convicted of aggravated murder on Friday.

Because Arnold, 28, is charged with a death penalty specification, the trial resumed Tuesday with the sentencing phase. The jury, which will make a sentencing recommendation to Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman, has four options: death, life without the possibility of parole, life with the possibility of parole after 30 years and life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Under Ohio law, Wiseman can reject a jury recommendation for death, but cannot impose death if the jury doesn't recommend it.

The question for the jury during this phase is whether any mitigating factors presented by the defense would outweigh the aggravating circumstance of killing a child under the age of 13.

The sentencing phase started with brief opening statements from assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Dan Brandt and defense attorney Kevin Lennen.

Brandt told the jury there could be no mitigating factor that would outweigh burning a baby to death in a microwave, and asked for a death sentence.

Lennen asked for a life sentence, and reminded jurors that "you're dealing with an individual. You're dealing with a family."

The prosecution rested without putting on any witnesses, but moved to have all evidence from the first part of the trial introduced in the second phase. Then defense attorneys presented Arnold's aunt and two uncles, who testified that Arnold came from a large but loving and close-knit family.

"I held her as a baby," said Crystal McGee.

McGee said Arnold was a young child when McGee got married. Arnold was responsible for holding McGee's wedding dress train, and because McGee did not know there was a button on the back of her dress where the train could be attached, Arnold spent the wedding and reception following McGee around holding her train.

McGee, who has been in the Navy for 23 years, said she almost talked Arnold into enlisting.

Arnold has many sisters. She also had a brother who died at 16. Her father died when she was a young girl, family members testified.

"China is very smart," McGee said. "She is very determined. She wanted to do better with her life."

During cross-examinations by assistant county prosecutor David Franceschelli, all three relatives said they never got a chance to meet Paris Talley, and that they wished they had.