Cops: Mom Coached Daughter on Roblox on How to Kill Baby

A Florida woman has been arrested after authorities say she urged her school-age daughter to kill an infant in the young girl's care, using the online video game platform Roblox to communicate her message. Per a statement from the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, investigators on Thursday received a call that informed them of a 2-month-old baby who'd been seriously injured after being dropped on a kitchen floor by a 10-year-old girl.

• On Roblox: When police started looking more into the case, they found the Roblox correspondence between the 10-year-old and her mother, 36-year-old Tara Sykes, who'd instructed the girl "on various methods to kill the infant," including ways to "drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor," per the sheriff's statement.

• The girl: According to an arrest report, Sykes' daughter said in a forensic interview that her mother had indeed told her to drop the baby, and that she was "terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well," per NBC News.
• Other instructions: Sykes had also allegedly coached the girl on how to kill the caregivers she's currently living with, "by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire," per the sheriff's office statement. Officials note the girl went so far as to douse the sheets but couldn't go through with the fire part.
• The baby: Court documents indicate that Sykes is related to the infant, who was taken to a nearby hospital by a foster dad after being dropped and reportedly has a skull fracture. A sheriff's department spokesman says the baby is expected to survive.
• Repercussions: Sykes, who was arrested Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, is now being kept in custody without bond. As for the 10-year-old, authorities don't anticipate charges being filed against her. "I have been in law enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this," Sheriff Chip Simmons says in the statement, noting of Sykes: "There is something really wrong with her."
• Another case: Law & Crime, meanwhile, reports on a previous arrest for Sykes and her husband earlier this year, in which they were accused of child neglect and endangerment for letting a 20-year-old man live with them after he'd gotten their 14-year-old daughter pregnant, and without reporting the "known sexual battery" against their daughter to police.

(More Roblox stories.)