[dropcap][/dropcap]By Jim Hagerty
Contributor

CINCINNATI — A mother accused of starving and beating her daughter to death has accepted a plea deal.

Andrea Bradley, 31, pleaded no contest in a Hamilton County courtroom Wednesday. Prosecutors alleged that Bradley and the child’s father inflicted a series of injuries on 2-year-old Glenara Bates over an extended period.

Authorities say the child’s body was littered with C-shaped contusions and bite marks. She also had missing teeth, broken ribs and head injuries, including one that had been crudely closed with sewing thread.

Glenara weighed only 13 pounds when she died, half the weight of a normal child her age. She was forced to sleep in a bathtub filled with human waste, and had diaper rash that extended beyond her lower back.

Bradley and Glen Bates were charged with murder in 2015. Bradley rejected an agreement with prosecutors in 2016 that would have removed the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. It was then ruled that Bradley was not eligible for a death sentence because she is intellectually disabled, a provision in the U.S. Constitution.

Bradley faces 23 years to life in prison.

Glen Bates was convicted of aggravated murder in 2016 and sentenced to die by lethal injection. The toddler’s 10-year-old sister testified that she witnessed him swing Glenara by the legs, banging her head into a wall to get her to stop crying. Prosecutors say that was the blow that killed the little girl. A coroner who performed the autopsy told the court Glenara’s death was one of the worst she’s ever seen.

“The abuse this baby suffered is beyond belief,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters told the Associated Press.

Sentencing is set for Jan. 24. R.

— with Associated Press reports