THE stepmother of Australian girl Zahra Baker has pleaded guilty to her death, nearly a year after the 10-year-old disappeared in the US. She will serve a maximum of 18 years in prison.

Elisa Baker, 43, entered a courtroom in North Carolina overnight wearing a hot-pink jail jumpsuit and handcuffs.

She sat between two defence lawyers and teared up before pleading guilty to second-degree murder, with aggravating factors that included dismembering Zahra's body.

Baker also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, and to charges unrelated to Zahra, including obtaining property by false pretences and financial identity fraud.

Prosecutors were presenting testimony from witnesses overnight prior to Baker's sentencing.

Adam Baker, Zahra's father and Elisa's husband, was present in the courtroom in Newton.

Adam, who came to the US with his daughter after meeting Elisa online, faces multiple criminal charges of his own, although none are related to his daughter's death.

Elisa Baker's guilty plea comes almost a year after Zahra - who had her lower left leg amputated as a five-year-old after battling bone cancer in Australia - was reported missing from her home.

Initially, she and Adam told police they believed their daughter had been kidnapped, but that story quickly unravelled as police arrested Elisa and charged her with forging a ransom note.

Not long after her arrest, Elisa Baker began co-operating with police searching for the girl, according to warrants unsealed in the case.

She told police that Zahra had been dismembered, and led them to some of the girl's remains at sites in two counties.

She told police that Adam Baker helped scatter the remains, but mobile phone records showed he was in different locations on the days when Elisa said Zahra's body parts were disposed of.

Zahra's death was caused by "undetermined homicidal violence", medical examiners said in documents.

An autopsy was done even though authorities hadn't recovered many bones, most notably the girl's skull, months after she was reported missing.



Several bones showed cutting tool marks consistent with dismemberment.

The case revealed Elisa Baker as a woman with a troubled past, constantly shifting addresses and staying one step ahead of bill collectors and social service agencies investigating reports of child abuse.

The Associated Press found that she has been married seven times, including several overlapping marriages.

Those who knew Elisa described her as an attractive high school student who became manipulative, cunning and insecure, struggling with obesity.

By the time she met Adam, she had largely detached herself from society, immersed in an online world of assumed identities and grandiose stories about her past, according to records and friends.