WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren OhioSecond day of testimony: Babysitter on trial accused of burning baby

Second day of testimony: Babysitter on trial accused of burning baby

WARREN, Ohio - It's the second full day of testimony in the Trumbull County trial of a Warren babysitter accused of severely burning Teiarra Houseman, who was only a year old at the time.

The prosecution played a videotaped statement of the defendant as she was interrogated by Warren Police Detective Mike Currington, just days after the child was injured.

Thirty-one-year-old Amanda Hall cried and wiped her eyes as she told the detective during the taped interview that she is not lying and she would never hurt a child. Hall tells the officer, "My daughter was in there with me. So I mean, I don't have anything to hide, I have nothing to lie about." Hall even volunteered to take a polygraph test and pay for it herself."

But the Warren police detective on the case says the baby's second degree burns from the tips of her fingers to the middle of her forearm tell a far different story.  

Dr. Richard Steiner from Akron Children's Hospital agrees, telling Judge John Stuard that the wounds show that Teiarra was deliberately burned and her arm forced or held in scalding water in the bathtub.  But the babysitter says there was no water in the bathtub at all.

Hall claims the little girl turned the scalding water on herself.  Hall says she thought her own daughter was with the little girl in the bathroom until she heard the baby scream and rushed in to snatch her out of the tub.

Hall faces a potential prison sentence of eight years if she's convicted in the child endangering and assault case. 

Testimony will continue in Trumbull County Court on Wednesday where Hall and her attorney have opted for a bench trial, meaning the judge and not a jury will decide whether she's guilty or not guilty.