'I just kept hitting her': Mother admits to beating death of 2-year-old, charges say
Police investigate a child's death in St. Paul Sunday morning.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A 29-year-old St. Paul woman is facing murder charges after police say she beat her 2-year-old daughter to death Saturday.
According to charges filed in Ramsey County District Court, Ciashia Lee told police she lost her temper and killed her daughter identified as Melody Vang.
"I just kept hitting her," Lee told police.
Medics found multiple large bruises to the child’s face and body and cuts and scratches on a "significant portion" of her body.
After the beating, Lee told police she took her daughter to a closet for a "time out" and left her there while she and her 43-year-old husband napped. Her husband found the toddler unresponsive and cold to the touch later before calling police.
The father wrapped the child’s body in a blanket and put her on the back porch so the other family members wouldn’t see or smell the body.
Both parents were taken to police headquarters for interviews. The other five children in the family, ranging from 8 months to 11 years old were placed in protective custody.
In an interview with the father, he told police the kids were returned to them after being placed in foster care.
The father said some of the girl’s scratching and bruising were self-inflicted, but that he had witnessed his wife hit the toddler with a stick and with an open hand in the past.
In her interview, the mother said she wasn’t sure what triggered her to hit her daughter, but said she gets very angry and "hears voices," according to the charges.
She admitted to hitting her daughter and insisted her husband had nothing to do with the discipline.
She attributed her discipline style to when she was a foster child as a teen, where she said she was physically and sexually assaulted.