A baby girl who was found stabbed and burned at her grandmother's home was still alive when she was placed in an oven, an autopsy has revealed.
Carolyn Jones, 48, is charged with first-degree murder after her granddaughter Royalty Marie Floyd's body was discovered at her home in Shaw, Mississippi last week.
An autopsy report, obtained by the Bolivar Commercial, found that the 20-month-old-girl had died "from sharp stab wounds and inhaling the heated air" - meaning she was still alive when she was placed inside the hot oven, the Daily Mail reports.
The Shaw Police Department said that Jones' brother had made the gruesome discovery and called the police at around 7pm on October 15.
Dozens of mourners held a vigil in honor of the girl on Monday in front of the Bolivar County Courthouse, where people 'shared lots of songs [and] lots of prayers' in her memory, WMC-TV reported.
"A family member (of the victim) came home and saw that something had happened," said Sheriff Kelvin Williams.
"They found the child in the oven and called the Shaw Police Department who in turn contacted us to assist in a homicide investigation. When the sheriff's office arrived at the scene it was confirmed that a homicide had taken place inside the home."
Veronica Jones, the 20-month-old girl's mother, said that she is still coming to terms with the fact her own mother is allegedly responsible.
"Royalty Marie Floyd was the best thing that ever happened to me. She's my one and only daughter. My first love," she said.
Veronica said her daughter's death was "the hardest thing that I ever had to go through in my life".
"My heart has been ripped from my chest.
"I'm being told that my mother stabbed my daughter and baked her in the oven but my mother loved my daughter. She always treated Royalty like Royalty and everybody that knows us know that."
Authorities say the little girl had been living with her grandmother.
Investigators are still trying to determine exactly when the girl died.
"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," Williams said.
Police said Jones was the only person in the home with Royalty at the time.
Police tape surrounded part of the home in the days after Royalty's body was found.
A stroller, high chair and a trash barrel of toys, including a scooter, sat near the curb in front of the house. Williams said those toys had belonged to Royalty.
Authorities said they had no immediately information about the circumstances leading up to the child's death.
"That's hard to say," Williams said. "We don't know."
Williams was asked if mental illness was a factor in the motive of the crime.
He replied: "We don't know any of that at this time and we are limited on what we can release".
Jones is being held on $500,000 bond.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help cover funeral costs and has exceeded $4,200.
"Royalty was so beautiful & I loved her more than anything in the world," the toddler's mother Veronica Jones wrote on a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for her funeral. "My daughter was stabbed and baked in the oven by her grandmother."
It is not the first death of a child inside an oven in the area.
n 2012, a woman in Greenville, about 20 miles from Shaw, pleaded guilty to cooking her 3-year-old son to death in an oven.
Terri Robinson, now 32, was sentenced to life in prison for the oven murder of Tristan Robinson.
Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson said an autopsy found Robinson died from heat injuries sustained in the electric oven.