ELYRIA, Ohio — Nicole Diar was an "absentee mother" who murdered her own son and then set her house on fire because the boy was a "strain on her resources," a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the woman's capital murder trial.

"This was a child she once referred to as her miracle baby, Jacob," prosecutor Michael Nolan said. "Well, the miracle baby became an albatross around her neck."

Nolan said that Diar's history as a burn victim at age 4, and her subsequent experience working at burn camps and speaking about her injuries, gave her the knowledge she needed to create a fire strong enough to destroy any evidence of the murder.

"Being a victim of fires, she knew all about fires," he said.

Story continues

advertisement

Nolan described how Diar, 30, first asphyxiated 4-year-old Jacob and then created a fast and powerful blaze that charred her son's body beyond recognition, and beyond the means of investigators to identify the exact cause of the child's death.

Defense attorney Jack Bradley countered the state's claims by criticizing both the police and fire investigations of the incident and by portraying Diar as a loving mother who doted on her child with toys and clothes.

"She loved Jacob. She spoiled him," Bradley said. "The police did everything they could to try and paint her as a bad person either before or after the fire to infer that she was the person who did this."

Diar is charged with murder, arson and assault for the Aug. 27, 2003, incident. If convicted of murder, she could face the death penalty.

She sat silently in a gray suit, her lifelong burn scars visible on her face, as prosecutors called several firefighters and paramedics to the stand.

As a child, Diar suffered burns over 22 percent of her body when her brother accidentally lit her nightgown on fire.

Nolan linked Diar's history as a burn victim to her alleged crimes several times during his opening arguments, suggesting that the attention she received from family and friends following the 1979 incident made her egocentric, selfish and, later in life, unwilling to care for Jacob.

"Nicole Diar, being an absentee mother, chose to use other people to take care of her son," he said. Those people, Nolan added, were often local teenagers whom Diar encouraged to give Jacob prescription Tylenol with codeine to quiet him or make him sleep.

Diar's frustration with Jacob came to a boil in the months before the fire when he was hospitalized for 10 days for gastrointestinal problems that may have been related to codeine intake, Nolan said. While at the hospital, Diar "indicated she can't take this anymore," he said.

If there was one consolation about the horrific fire, which followed a trail of gasoline from the open front door to a first floor bedroom, it was that Jacob was dead before the flames "destroyed his body" and also killed his new puppy, Nolan said.

His mother showed no signs of injury or smoke inhalation when firefighters and paramedics spoke with her, the prosecutor said.

"There is no soot on her person or her clothes, there is no indicia of burnt hair," Nolan said. "Nicole Diar's body and clothes were pristine."

Bradley acknowledged that his client was lacking as a mother, and even that she had given the boy codeine, but denied that she had murdered her child.

"Yes, she wasn't the best mother," Bradley said. "She had babysitters watch him when she went out, as most young single mothers do."

But he noted that a medical examiner could not determine the exact cause of Jacob's death and did not find marks on his neck consistent with strangulation.

Anthony Cuevas, the assistant chief of the Lorain Fire Department, became emotional when he told jurors about discovering and removing the badly charred remains of Jacob from the house.

"I didn't realize it was a child," he said.

Court TV Extra is streaming the trial live.