TORONTO - A mom who went shopping for a CD while the skin of her badly scalded baby peeled away -- then lied about the dying boy's horrific injuries -- was convicted of manslaughter Monday.

In finding Melissa Alexander guilty, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Malloy said the accused had failed dismally as mother to 19-month-old Miguel Fernandes.

"The truth of it lies in the photographs of Miguel's body," Malloy said in her written judgment.

"A thousand words cannot describe the tragedy of it."

The Toronto mother had insisted the chubby-cheeked, dark-eyed boy pulled a bowl of hot water onto himself on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2007.

Doctors said his injuries were consistent with dunking the boy in scalding water.

The effects of scalding were obvious.

About 40 per cent of Miguel's small body was severely burned. Only his chest, arms and face along with parts of his knees and the tips of his toes were spared.

Yet, in the hours that followed, Alexander, 25, failed to seek the urgent medical attention that might have saved the tormented baby's life.

"Any reasonable person looking at a photograph of his burns would know instantly that these injuries required immediate medical attention," Malloy said.

Medical evidence was that Miguel would have been screaming in agony and throwing up before falling into a coma.

Alexander put the boy into a cool bath, and applied Vaseline to his burns.

Despite being "fully aware" Miguel was terribly hurt -- "multiple scraps" of Miguel's skin were later found in the garbage -- Alexander left him with his 29-month-old step-brother and went shopping for two hours.

Among other things, she bought two Kanye West CDs and some groceries.

"I hope for the rest of her life, she won't have peace," Miguel's grandmother, Maria Fernandes, said after the guilty verdict.

"I hope the only thing that she could see for the rest of her life is Miguel's face."

At some point during the afternoon of Sept. 11, Alexander told Miguel's dad that the boy had pulled a pot of hot water onto himself, but insisted it wasn't serious.

She also told her husband she had sought help from a walk-in clinic and was advised to apply an anti-bacterial ointment.

"It is clear no doctor or pharmacist saw Miguel until after he was dead," Malloy wrote.

That evening, Alexander dissuaded her husband from inspecting the burns on the grounds it would disturb the child.

"He asks himself every day why he did not go ahead and look at Miguel's legs," the judge said.

"(But) he trusted the boy's mother."

It was only at 2 a.m. the following day -- about 12 hours after the scalding -- that the mother dialled 911 to say her son was dead. Paramedics could not revive him.

Malloy rejected defence assertions the boy would not have survived even with immediate medical care.

"I'm angry that she did it because she took an angel from us," Fernandes said.

"But she was found guilty and that's what we were hoping for."

Alexander remains out on bail. She faces a sentencing hearing on April 19.