[CrimsonTide4]

Mother of girl in washing machine charged
California woman in custody; child still in hospital
Tuesday, May 27, 2003 Posted: 11:01 PM EDT (0301 GMT)


LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A mother accused of placing her 2-year-old daughter in a washing machine and turning it on was charged with felony child endangerment Tuesday and is being held on $50,000 bail, authorities said.

Sgt. Joann Crabb of the Pomona Police Department said officers responded Saturday to a report of a child stuck in a washing machine at a laundromat.

Upon discovering the child trapped inside the commercial washer, Crabb said, police had to break the machine's front glass to extricate the child from the washer, which was filled with water.

According to an Associated Press report, surveillance camera footage showed that the woman, Erma Osborne, placed her daughter in one washer, then removed her and placed her in a second front-loading washer, which turned on when she closed the door.

The child was unconscious when she was pulled from the washer but breathing, the AP said.

Osborne, a 35-year-old resident of Pomona, California, was arrested at the site, and her daughter was taken to the intensive care unit of Children's Hospital in Orange County, where she received stitches in her arms and legs.

Osborne is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning in Pomona Superior Court on the felony count. Her daughter remains in the hospital, authorities said.