Cocaine-using mother, 26, is convicted of murdering her 19-month-old daughter by scalding her with boiling water then leaving her to scream while she spent an hour covering her tracks

A cocaine-using mother who scalded her 19-month-old daughter to death and left her to scream in pain while she 'covered her tracks' for an hour has been convicted of murder. 

Katie Crowder, 26, killed Gracie Crowder by exposing her to hot water at her home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and then spent the next hour 'clearing up' before taking the infant to her parents' house in the same street.

Gracie died shortly after she was rushed to hospital on March 6 after suffering deep burns covering 65 per cent of her body area and a cardiac arrest.

Nottingham Crown Court heard that on her arrival to Paul and Karen Crowder's house, the defendant sounded 'panicked' as she knocked on their door and told her parents 'she's dead, she's dead'.  

Katie Crowder (left with Gracie), 26, murdered her daughter Gracie Crowder by exposing her to hot water at her home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire

The 19-month-old died shortly after she was rushed to hospital on March 6 after suffering deep burns covering 65 per cent of her body

The mother wept in the dock today after the verdict was given at Nottingham Crown Court and as jurors were relieved of their duties, a woman in the public gallery screamed in apparent frustration.

During the trial, Crowder had denied the single charge of murder, claiming she 'would never hurt' her daughter.

However the jury dismissed her claims that she had been 'cleaning up a mess from the puppy' when she found her daughter face down in the bathroom next to a mop bucket.   

Crowder had denied the single charge of murder but the jury dismissed her claims that she had been 'cleaning up a mess from the puppy' 

During the trial, the prosecution said a Home Office pathologist had concluded Gracie would have cried out 'vigorously' until pain was relieved and she would not have suffered organ failure for around an hour.

On the night of the killing, grandmother Karen Crowder asked the accused 'what the hell have you done?' after Gracie suffered a cardiac arrest, to which she responded: 'I don't know, I found her like this.'

In her prosecution opening, Sally Howes QC said: 'Gracie Crowder's death was not an instant death. It would have taken in the region of one hour for her to die.

'You may ask - why the delay in calling for help?

'It is the Crown's case that the delay was Katie Crowder covering her tracks - she knew what she had done. 

'She was clearing up, she was clearing away, she was thinking about a way of explaining what she had done.' 

The 26-year-old defendant told police she had been 'cleaning up a mess from the puppy' and found her daughter face down in the bathroom next to a mop bucket

During the trial, jurors were told the amount of cocaine found in Crowder's blood four hours after the incident was consistent with the defendant having taken the class A drug in the hour before Gracie's death.

The killer had also made comments about her daughter in the past, saying: 'I need to get her to nursery, I never get a break at all.'

She was arrested at King's Mill Hospital in Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, and when cautioned, she said: 'What? I would never hurt her.'

Crowder will be sentenced at a later date.