Up until I was ten years old, I had the same reoccurring nightmare.
I was a toddler, watching my father Robert snooze on the couch. My mother Melissa picked me up and took me to the kitchen, placing me on the benchtop.
Then, I’d feel excruciating pain and terror… before suddenly finding myself in hospital with a nurse looming over me.
I would wake up screaming every single time and my aunt Rhonda, with whom I was living, would rush into my bedroom to comfort me.
I didn’t know it then, but these weren’t nightmares. They were memories.
I’d later learn that much of my childhood was spent in hospital. At 14 months, I suffered third-degree burns to more than 30 per cent of my body, mostly my back and arms. I had repeated skin grafts and surgeries until I was five years old.
Every six months or so, saline bags were implanted under my burn scars to stretch my new growing skin. The pain was awful, but the wonderful nurses lifted my spirits.
They let me sit at the nurses’ station with them and play games.
Alabama woman Melissa Wright placed her baby daughter Ashley in a hot oven in 2002
Melissa Wright is seen top left in this family photo with baby Ashley (bottom), her father Robert (centre) and her older sister (right)
At 14 months, she suffered third-degree burns to more than 30 per cent of her body
They were basically my family because I didn’t see my mother or my eight-year-old half-sister Courtney.
My father visited sometimes, but he couldn’t bear to see me in pain. I remember him crying whenever he came.
That was how I ended up living with my aunt Rhonda, my father’s sister, after I got out of the hospital.
I would always ask her where my mother was and why I didn’t live with my dad, but she would never tell me.
With my bright red, angry-looking scars and constantly being in and out of hospital, I knew I wasn’t like other children, and I was teased often.
The only time I’d feel normal is when I went to an annual camp for kids with burns.
As I got older, I became more inquisitive about what had caused my burns, because no one had ever told me the full story.
Rhonda still refused to discuss it, though sometimes she would sigh, ‘Your mother is crazy.’
Much of Ashley’s childhood was spent in hospital
‘With my bright red, angry-looking scars and constantly being in and out of hospital, I knew I wasn’t like other children, and I was teased often,’ says Ashley (pictured as a toddler)
It felt like there was a big secret.
By my teens I was pretty sure my burns weren’t from a house fire, but I didn’t know what had happened.
Becoming a peer counsellor to younger children at my annual burns camp made me feel not so alone. Seeing my nurses always helped, too.
At 15, my last disfiguring tissue expanders were removed. It was my 72nd surgery.
A few months after my 15th birthday, Rhonda took me to a meeting with a lawyer.
I guessed it was something to do with the fire and my mother, but I was totally unprepared for what he said.
‘Ashley, there’s something I must tell you,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if you know this, but when you were a baby, your mother put you in the oven. That’s how you got your burns.’
My jaw dropped. My mother put me in the oven?
‘She’s been in prison since then,’ he continued.
‘But there’s a parole hearing in two days and you’ve got to make a decision whether she gets out.’
I was reeling, trying to take it all in. No wonder nobody ever told me anything.
He fanned out photos of a horrifically burned and blistered little girl: me.
I burst into tears. It was overwhelming.
And now it was up to me to decide if the woman who did that to me – my own mother – was to be granted parole or remain behind bars.
Before I had a chance to think, my aunt fanned out several old newspaper clippings on the table, ‘These are articles about what your mum did,’ Rhonda said.
After overcoming her traumatic burns, Ashley is now a mother herself
I saw photos of my mum.
‘I look like her,’ I sobbed. It was all I could say. I fled to the bathroom. The meeting ended there. I cried for hours when I got home.
The newspaper stories said in June 2002, when I was 14 months, my mother had removed the racks from the oven and put the grill on.
She turned it to high, over 300°C.
Then she’d put me in the oven, headfirst.
How could she?
During her trial, experts and prosecutors had ruled she was sane. Her motive? She was jealous of the attention my father gave me.
She pleaded guilty to attempted murder and, in August 2003, was jailed for 25 years.
Now she was up for parole.
I can’t support parole, I thought. I kept thinking how there were little kids in my extended family and I couldn’t bear the idea of my mother being near them.
Thankfully, she wasn’t at the hearing.
But my sister Courtney, who I had not seen for years, was. She wanted our mother freed, arguing she had served enough time and was mentally ill when she put me in the oven.
Shaking, I stood up.
‘I think Melissa should stay in prison a few more years,’ I said with quiet determination. I then told the parole board I did not trust her around children.
‘I do not hate Melissa, but I do not love her,’ I added.
Parole was denied.
Ashley’s father was the one to rescue her from the oven. He was later diagnosed with PTSD
Afterwards, I wrote to her and asked why she’d hurt me, but she never replied.
Meanwhile, everyone at school had seen the news.
‘You lied about being in a house fire,’ some taunted. Others called me ‘scar face’ or said my mum didn’t want me.
The bullying got so bad, I took an overdose of pills.
I’d suffered depression and anxiety for years, but now it was much worse.
Struggling to cope with me, Rhonda let me move in with my father.
It was weird at first. We were strangers.
My father was a plumber and handyman. To keep my mind busy, he took me on jobs. We bonded as I learned to tile, lay carpets and fix up a house.
One day, he talked about what had happened.
‘Your mum had been acting strange. Saying crazy stuff about Jesus,’ he revealed.
‘I was thinking of leaving with you girls.’
He said we’d been playing outside and got grubby, so he’d given us a bath.
‘I put a movie on and fell asleep on the couch. I woke to you and Courtney screaming. I ran in the kitchen and saw you in the oven.’
Dad’s voice cracked and he welled up.
‘I scooped you out of the oven. Your skin was peeling off. Then I ran to the car, put you on my lap and drove as a fast as I could to the hospital.’
Dad’s account matched the nightmares I’d been having all those years.
Despite being just 14 months old, I’d somehow remembered parts of that day.
In the aftermath, my father was diagnosed with PTSD.
‘I couldn’t look after you. I’m so sorry,’ he told me, breaking down in tears.
A few years passed. Life was getting better. I decided to ask dad him if I could write to mother in prison. I wasn’t ready to forgive; I wanted answers.
While behind bars, Ashley’s mother wrote delusional letters about how they would somehow have a normal family relationship after her release
‘It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t recommend it,’ he said.
Being a teenager, I ignored his advice and wrote to her.
‘Why did you burn me? What were you thinking. Did you love me?’ I asked. She didn’t reply.
Thinking about my future, I decided to honour the care I received as a toddler and throughout my childhood by becoming a paediatrician.
But these plans fell by the wayside when I became pregnant with twins to my then boyfriend. Tragically, my babies, Mason and Alana, were stillborn.
I was devastated. My boyfriend and I split up; our relationship couldn’t survive the grief.
Later, I met my now-husband Anthony and, deciding paediatric nursing was a better fit with a family, I started a science degree.
I was still volunteering as a peer counsellor for children who’d been burnt and that year, I met a six-year-old girl who’d been set alight by her father.
I taught her how to moisturise her scars and prepared her for the inevitable bullying. It made me even more determined to help other kids as a nurse.
In May 2021, Anthony and I had a baby boy, Brooklyn. Our daughter, Kaden, followed in March 2022.
Five months later, my dad passed away, aged 65. It marked the end of years of torment after the sight of me blistered and burnt in the oven was seared into his mind.
‘Dad was always honest with me,’ I sobbed to Anthony.
It was yet another blow, but with study and two babies to look after, I just had to battle through my grief.
That same year I wrote twice to my mother behind bars.
I was pregnant again when she finally replied.
Seeing the prison stamp on the envelope, I nervously tore it open. I was hoping for a meaningful explanation, a heartfelt apology.
I didn’t get it.
‘Hey my beautiful angel,’ my mother began.
‘I am so sorry. I tried too hard be the perfect mother,’ she wrote.
I was stunned. What she had done fell a long way short of simply failing to be a perfect mother.
She asked for photos of me and my children. She wanted a second chance to be a mother to me and a grandmother to my kids.
‘No way!’ I spluttered aloud, as I read on.
She joked how my kids would know their ‘gangsta granny’ and how, when she was released, she wanted to move close to me, build our relationship and go shopping together.
There was no taking responsibility for what she’d done. And to call serving time for trying to kill your child ‘gangsta’ was simply outrageous.
Bizarrely, she thought we’d have this amazing mother-daughter relationship.
‘She’s deluded,’ I told Anthony. ‘And there’s no way she’s coming anywhere near my kids.’
I concluded she must have been crazy when she put me in the oven.
‘I don’t want to see her, but prison is the wrong place. She should be released to a mental health unit,’ I told my husband.
On June 21, 2023, we had a little girl, Jaylee. But our baby bubble was short-lived.
A month later, I woke up to find her struggling to breathe. Then her breathing stopped and I frantically performed CPR.
‘Call an ambulance!’ I screamed to Anthony.
For 30 desperate minutes, I fought to keep my baby alive, massaging her tiny chest and blowing little breaths into her.
I couldn’t save her.
She had swallowed amniotic fluid at birth which caused intestinal pneumonia.
I was completely overwhelmed when we laid my baby to rest. I’d been through so much: my mother had tried to kill me; I’d suffered agonising pain from my burns, countless surgeries, bullying, depression, anxiety and a suicide attempt; then I’d lost my dad and my twins…
Yet, somehow, I was still here.
‘I’ve got two other kids who need me. I’ve got to carry on,’ I told Anthony.
It’s not been easy. I often wonder why I’ve been given such a load to carry.
Still I have nightmares. And lately my scars have tightened. My skin pulls when I pick the kids up; it’ll tear soon and I’ll need more surgery.
But I’m a survivor.
In December last year, I had another little girl, Mariah.
I’ve paused my studies for the moment but it’s still my dream to become a paediatric nurse.
In January, my mother unexpectedly called me from prison.
‘I just wanted to see how you and the children are doing,’ she said.
‘We’re doing fine,’ I replied, refusing to give her any details.
She doesn’t know how many children I’ve got or their names, and I wanted to keep it that way.
Talking about her eventual release, she said she wanted to come and live with me.
‘We’ll be able to go shopping together,’ she said, repeating her delusional hope we’ll one day have a normal mother-daughter relationship.
‘No, that’s not happening,’ I replied, curtly.
That’s when she turned nasty. Right there in the visitor’s area where she was allowed a brief daily telephone call.
‘You know what, I wish you would have died,’ she snarled, her voice dripping with venom.
I hung up.
Her syrupy letters, her attempt at playing nice… it was all a ruse. She was still the same spiteful woman who’d tried to kill me all those years ago.
Recently, I called Tutwiler Prison, where my mother is currently serving her sentence.
I wanted to know the latest on her release date.
To my horror I learned she was due to be released to a halfway house in Birmingham, Alabama, in April 2026.
Inmates can serve out the last part of their sentence there while social workers help them with training, education and finding work.
She will be out in the community before her sentence ends and she is officially released in 2027.
I’m not worried about my own safety, but I am concerned about her being around kids again.
The conditions of her release will mean she can’t be with children, but how is it possible to police that?
By the time she gets out, she’ll have been locked up for a quarter of a century.
I spoke to a corrections officer who told me the long-timers like my mum usually get released and end up right back behind bars.
What really worries me is what she’s going to do to end up back there.
- As told to John Parrish
