MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — A woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to beating to death a 2-year-old girl she had adopted from an orphanage in Siberia.

Peggy Sue Hilt, 33, of Wake Forest, N.C., choked back tears as she entered the plea to second-degree murder. She could get up to 40 years in prison at sentencing May 25.

The little girl, Nina, died in Manassas last summer after the family came to Virginia for the Fourth of July. A detective testified that Hilt admitted that she became upset with the girl for crying and dropped her on the floor, kicked her and jumped on her abdomen.

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By pleading guilty, Hilt avoided a possible first-degree murder charge and a life sentence.

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