A mother who instructed her lesbian lover to murder her six-month-old son by burning him alive is set to face the death penalty in the US state of Louisiana.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Hanna Nicole Barker (23) if she is found guilty of ordering the murder of her son six-month-old Levi Cole Ellerbe.
It is believed that Barker told her girlfriend at the time, Felicia Marie-Nicole Smith, 26, to kill her son on her behalf after she had falsely claimed the child had been kidnapped.
Investigators believe that Smith took Levi to a secluded railroad before dousing him in petrol and setting him on fire at the instruction of Barker. While this was taking place, Barker rang police and informed them that two people had come to her home, pepper sprayed her and then kidnapped her son.
Acting swiftly Louisiana State Troopers located the boy after being alerted about a fire at a nearby railway line.
The child was rushed to hospital having suffered second and third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body and died from his injuries a short time later.
Smith and Baker were arrested on suspicion of murder just days later. Baker soon admitted under interrogation that she asked Smith to murder her son for her by burning him alive.
Prosecutors are expected to request the death penalty for Smith as well after her initial arraignment.
Recently President Trump’s Justice Department ordered federal executions in the U.S to be recommenced since being halted in 2003, with five inmates, all of whom were convicted of murdering children to die by lethal injection by the end of this year.
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