A woman has pleaded guilty to killing her pregnant neighbour so she could raise the baby with her boyfriend.

Brooke Crews, 38, faces life in prison after changing her not-guilty plea at Cass County Court, North Dakota, to charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder, and lying to police officers.

Crews and her boyfriend, William Hoehn, 32, had both been charged over the death of 22-year-old Savanna Greywind, who lived in Fargo and disappeared on 19 August, reports local TV station KVRR.

Greywind’s body was found by kayakers wrapped in plastic and duct tape in the Red River. Though investigators have not said how she was killed, Fargo’s police chief called it a “cruel and vicious act of depravity”.

The baby girl, who survived, was found in Crews and Mr Hoehn’s apartment. Greywind’s boyfriend, Ashton Matheny, said DNA tests confirmed that he and Greywind are the girl’s parents. He now has custody, prosecutor Leah Viste said.

Crews and Mr Hoehn gave investigators differing accounts of what happened, according to the criminal complaint. Crews told police she arranged to have Greywind come to her apartment on 19 August and told her how to induce labour, and that Greywind returned two days later to give her the newborn baby.

The discovery of Ms Greywind’s remains near a farmhouse ended an eight-day search for the nursing assistant (Savanna Greywind/Facebook)

Mr Hoehn told investigators he came home 19 August to find Crews cleaning up blood in their bathroom. He said Ms Crews presented him with the infant girl and said: “This is our baby. This is our family,” the complaint states.

Mr Hoehn told police he took garbage bags containing bloody shoes and his bloody towels and disposed of them away from the apartment complex, according to the documents.

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But Crew’s lawyer, Steven Mottinger, told local newspaper The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead that she now accepted responsibility for her actions and the guilty plea “goes a long way in terms of us being able to argue for something less than life without parole”.