Image copyright AP Image caption Brittany Pilkington wanted her daughter to get more attention, prosecutors said

An Ohio woman has confessed to police that she killed her three sons because she said her husband was ignoring their daughter.

Police had at first ruled out foul play in the deaths of Brittany Pilkington's three-month-old boy in July 2014 and her four-year-old son in April.

But when a third son was found dead on Tuesday, police took Ms Pilkington in for questioning and she confessed.

She told police she killed the boys by suffocating them with blankets.

Ms Pilkington, 23, was charged with three counts of murder and has been jailed.

When her three-month old boy was found dead in July 2014, authorities in Bellefontaine - a small town southwest of Cleveland - had removed the remaining boy and her three-year-old daughter from the home.

The children were returned to the family when the medical examiner found no evidence of foul play.

'Just cold'

Police had been suspicious because Ms Pilkington did not show emotion when her three-month-old son died in July 2014.

"She was just cold," James Breaston, a neighbour, told the Columbus Dispatch. "She just stared like nothing happened."

The daughter, has been taken into custody by a local child welfare agency.

Authorities said Ms Pilkington and her husband Joseph were cooperative as she confessed to the killings.

"In her mind," Logan County prosecutor William Goslee said, "she was protecting her daughter from not being as loved as the boys were by their father."