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Last updated on Monday, May 6, 2013
(HOMEDALE, IDAHO) - An Idaho woman has pleaded guilty to charges that she burned the body of her two-year-old daughter in a barrel after the toddler died of an injury.
Prosecutors alleged Veronica Herrera did so with the help of two of her other children.
Court records say Herrera, a resident of the small town of Homedale located 40 miles west of Boise, told investigators her daughter Nakita jumped from a potty chair, hit her head on a heater and later died.
The 29-year-old said she then burned Nakita's body because she feared losing custody of her other children if the child's death was discovered.
Herrera was first charged with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter on April 11.
She also pleaded guilty to failing to report a death, destroying evidence and three counts of injury to a child.
Owyhee County Prosecutor Doug Emery said two of the three injury charges relate to Herrera having her other children help burn the body.
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