Mississippi Grandmother Carolyn Jones Charged With Stabbing Toddler, Baking Her In Oven

A Mississippi grandmother has been charged with murder in the gruesome death of her toddler granddaughter, who was found stabbed and baked in an oven, WABC-TV (New York) is reporting.

Carolyn Jones, 48, has been charged with murder in the death of Royalty Marie Floyd, in the Mississippi Delta town of Shaw.

Authorities say that Jones’ brother turned up at the family home on Monday night and found Royalty in the oven, dead, having been burned and stabbed. He called the police.

So gruesome was the crime scene, and so serious this crime, that Shaw police called in the county sheriff’s office for help.

Bolivar County Sheriff Kelvin Williams Sr. said he’s never seen anything like this in his two and a half decades wearing a badge.

“I’ve been doing law enforcement for 25 or 26 years now. This is one of the most horrible things I’ve seen in doing law enforcement. The hardest part… is to see a child victim.”

It remains unclear, as of this writing, how Royalty died. Specifically, authorities don’t know if she had died of her stab wounds before being placed in the oven, or if she was still alive and then burned to death. Her body has been sent to a crime lab in nearby Pearl; as of Tuesday night, autopsy results were still pending.

As for Jones, she was arrested on Monday night. Williams says she was the only one who was at home with Royalty when she died. Jones has been taken to jail and is currently being held on $500,000 bond. It is unclear, as of this writing, if she has an attorney.

As for a motive, Williams says investigators have nothing so far, according to The San Luis Obispo Tribune.

“We have no idea at this point. Again, we might get some closure once we sit down with the investigator and once they present that to a judge for official charges.”

Neighbor Tomorrow Williams said that she rarely saw anyone coming to or from the home where Royalty died.

“It’s a baby. It’s an innocent child. She didn’t ask to be here.”

This is not the first time that a baby in Mississippi has been killed by being placed in an oven. Back in 2011, in a town about 30 miles from Shaw, Terri Robinson placed her 3-year-old son in a heated oven; he later died from heat injuries. Robinson pleaded guilty in 2012 and is currently behind bars.