Mother arrested in death of infant

LOS ANGELES – A woman whose baby was found dead in a washing machine after a house fire was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of murder, police said.

Firefighters found the body of Latunga Starks’ 3-month-old boy Monday after putting out a fire that gutted the kitchen and rear bedroom of a home in Los Angeles.

Firefighters later discovered the child’s body inside a washing machine in the rear bedroom and concluded the fire was intentionally set.

Starks, 32, “was very passive, very unemotional” as she talked to detectives, police Lt. Dennis Shirey said. “She didn’t appear to be remorseful.”

Neither a motive nor the cause of the baby’s death was released, police officer Kathy Simpson said.