Missouri mom, 26, is charged with baking her newborn baby daughter to death in an OVEN ‘after mistaking kitchen appliance for infant’s crib’, leaving tortured girl’s clothes melted to her diaper

A Missouri mother has been accused of baking her newborn daughter to death in an oven after mistaking it for a crib.

Mariah Thomas, 26, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after one-month-old Za’Riah Mae was found dead with “burns,” according to an arrest warrant.

Police were called to the mother’s home in Kansas City on Friday, the day after Thomas’ birthday, on reports of a child not breathing.

When they arrived, they found the child covered in burns, while her “blackened” clothing had melted to her diaper.

A devastated friend of Thomas told DailyMail.com that Za’Riah was a ‘very bubbly’ baby who was ‘smiling all the time’.

According to Thomas’ arrest warrant, the one-month-old baby was found in her Kansas City home with burn marks on her body

Thomas told police she “accidentally placed her in the oven instead of the crib,” according to the charging document

She also suggested that Thomas’ mental health may have played a role in the tragedy.

‘As far as I know, Mariah had mental problems and did not have the mentality of an adult. She was thinking like a child,” the friend said, adding that she last spoke to the mother on Monday.

Za’Riah’s grandfather told police that he received a call from her mother around 1 p.m. on Friday, in which she told him that “something was wrong with the baby and he needed to go home immediately.”

Upon returning home, she immediately began to smell smoke and found Za’Riah dead in her crib.

Thomas told him she had “accidentally” put her in the oven, according to court documents.

Za’Riah was discovered by police in a car seat in her home with “apparent thermal injuries on various parts of her body.”

She was wearing a bodysuit over a diaper that appeared to have melted on it and was “very dirty, possibly burned.”

A charred baby blanket was also discovered and taken as evidence.

Police responded to reports of a child not breathing and found the child dead in her car seat

Social media posts from Thomas depicted her as a loving mother, but also suggested she felt isolated

Thomas was transported to police headquarters for an interview, where she invoked her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

But she agreed to let detectives take a blood draw and access her phone records.

Thomas’ social media presents her as a doting mother, who called her daughter her “princess.”

In a Facebook post, she says she wants to be “the best mother I can be to my beautiful daughter.”

But in a haunting post just weeks before the tragedy, Thomas complained that no one was looking out for her.

“Madams claim they, my boyfriend, never check up on me or Za’Riah,” she wrote on January 20.

Thomas is currently being held at the Jackson County Detention Center.