A chilling new video shows the moment a mother confessed to an investigator that she beat her five-year-old daughter to death and then ordered her husband to hide the child's body in the back of the family's restaurant.

Ming Ming Chen, 30, was questioned by investigators over the death of her daughter, Ashley Zhao, who was first reported missing in January 2017.

Ashley's body was later found hidden in the family's restaurant, Ang's Asian Cuisine, in North Canton, Ohio.

In the video, the investigator asks Chen: 'What happened; how did she die?'

'I just killed her and the she died,' Chen responded.

A chilling new video shows the moment Ming Ming Chen (left) confesses to an investigator that she beat her five-year-old daughter to death and then ordered her husband to hide the child's body in the back of the family's restaurant

Chen (pictured) was questioned by investigators over the death of her daughter, Ashley Zhao, who was first reported missing in January 2017. In the video, the investigator asks Chen if she hit Ashley to which Chen responded 'yes'

Ashley's (right) body was later found hidden in the family's restaurant, Ang's Asian Cuisine, in North Canton, Ohio. Chen (left), was initially charged with murder but that charge was lessened because of her plea deal

The investigator presses on and asks her: 'Did you hit her?'

'Yes,' Chen is heard saying in the video.

'How did you hit her?' the investigator asks Chen.

'Use your hand to do that,' Chen said while motioning how she hit her daughter.

Chen, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges, then went on to say that she told her husband Liang Zhao to dispose of their daughter's body.

'I told my husband to take care of it,' she told the investigator. Her husband then hid their child's body in the restaurant.

Chen said she killed her daughter because she became overwhelmed by work and claimed that after their daughter came back from spending time with her grandparents in China, she became disobedient.

'I need to take care of everything from the restaurant. I only have two hands. I'm not four hands girl, I'm two hands,' Chen explained in the video.

'I don't want to do that to Ashley, but you can't control yourself sometimes,' Chen added.

The investigator then asks Chen: 'How did you hit her?'

'Use your hand to do that,' Chen said while motioning how she beat her daughter

Chen, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges, then went on to say that she told her husband Liang Zhao to dispose of their daughter's body

Chen said she killed her daughter because she became overwhelmed by work and her daughter had become disobedient after spending time in China with her grandparents. 'I don't want to do that to Ashley, but you can't control yourself sometimes,' Chen said

Chen was initially charged with murder, but Stark County prosecutors lessened it to involuntary manslaughter as part of her plea deal.

She also pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering, corpse abuse, child endangerment and obstructing justice.

When Ashley was reported missing on January 9, 2017, her disappearance sparked a state-wide manhunt and police combed the nearby area looking for her.

Her body was found the next day, still inside the restaurant, near the kitchen's freezer.

Both parents were arrested after the grisly discovery.

Authorities said Chen repeatedly hit the girl, causing a fatal brain injury, and that her husband tried to revive her before helping hide the body.

Chen also pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering, corpse abuse, child endangerment and obstructing justice

County Prosecutor John Ferrero said evidence and interviews in the case indicate Chen didn't plan or intend to kill her daughter and that it was a tragedy 'committed in a fit of anger by a mother who had never bonded with her child'.

Her husband Liang Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to attempting to revive Ashley and then helping to hide her body when he realized it was a lost cause

Defense attorney Richard Drucker disagreed with that characterization, saying that Chen is apologetic and takes responsibility for her actions.

He also said that if the case had gone to trial, they would have argued that Chen's husband, Liang Zhao, was violent toward both the girl and Chen and that he also bore responsibility in the death.

Zhao pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges including obstructing justice and corpse abuse, tampering with evidence and endangering children and agreed to testify against his wife.

In exchange, murder charges against him were dropped.

His attorney previously said Zhao maintained his innocence in the child's death. He will serve 12 years in prison for the guilty plea.

It was a sad situation for Chen, who came to the US illegally from China as a teenager in search of a better life, started a family with an American citizen who also was Chinese and ended up in a violent household, Drucker said.

When Ashley was reported missing on January 9, 2017, her disappearance sparked a state-wide manhunt and police combed the nearby area looking for her. The next day authorities found the child inside the family's restaurant Ang's Asian Cuisine (pictured)

Chen, who came to the US illegally from China more than 10 years ago, got married to Zhao

'I don't think she's a monster,' Drucker said. 'I think she was a woman that made very poor choices in her life at the time.'

Because she was in the US illegally, authorities said Chen is expected to be deported to China after serving her sentence.

Chen had applied for asylum in the US in 2009 while claiming she was persecuted by the Chinese government as a follower of Falun Gong, a meditation practice outlawed by China's government, and federal judges have twice denied her petitions to stay in the US, WEWS-TV reported.

Court records referred to her as Mingming Chen, though lawyers in the case now spell her name as three words instead of two.