An Ogden woman whose report that her 3-year-old daughter was kidnapped spurred a massive manhunt pleaded guilty on Monday to murder. The child's blanket-wrapped body had been found beneath a cemetery bush.

Shelly Flemal, 24, was distant and unemotional when she appeared before 2nd District Judge W. Brent West following two weeks of plea negotiations between her attorneys and the Weber County Attorney's Office.Flemal, who has a history of child abuse and had another child taken from her by the state, had initially denied any involvement in the death of Courtney Jo Flemal. Later, she said the child suffocated accidentally while they slept in a waterbed. She also had claimed insanity.

On Monday, she signed off on a deal in which Deputy County Attorney Gary Heward agreed to recommend to the Board of Pardons and Parole that she serve no more than six years in prison with credit for the 15 months she has spent in jail.

Murder is a first-degree felony that carries a term of from five years to life in prison. West set sentencing for April 22 at 2 p.m.

At the prosecutor's request, West asked Flemal to detail what happened to Courtney Jo the morning of June 4, 1994. Instead, defense attorney Bernie Allen said the woman had taken the child to bed with her the night before and inadvertently fell asleep. Courtney Jo was dead when she awoke the next morning, Allen said.

Deputy County Attorney Bill Daines said an autopsy showed bruises on the back of the child's neck in the shape of fingers and suggested that she had been suffocated by being pressed into Fle-mal's soft waterbed.

The autopsy itself was inconclusive as to the cause of death.

That morning, Flemal reported to police that her daughter had been playing on a swing set in Ogden's Liberty Park when she disappeared. A community-wide man-hunt ensued, followed by shock when the child's body was found three days later.

Flemal was arrested and charged six months later.

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Earlier this year, she admitted she had caused the child's death but said it was an accident.

Court records show Flemal had a history of child abuse. In 1989, her son Tyler was taken from her by state child protection workers after he had been hospitalized with a broken arm, broken leg and a skull fractured in eight places.

Flemal never visited the child during his two-week hospitalization.

She also had been reported for allegedly neglecting and abusing Courtney Jo, but social workers did not find enough evidence to take her from her mother's custody.

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