ANTELOPE VALLEY : Woman Pleads No Contest in Deaths of 2 Infants

In a case that helped draw attention to the Antelope Valley’s child abuse problems, a woman accused of killing her two infant children has pleaded no-contest to second-degree murder in the deaths.

Sharon F. Conley, 37, of Quartz Hill, and Ronald E. Wesselmann, 40, were arrested in February, 1992, after a dead newborn boy was found inside a trash bag in a dumpster near the couple’s apartment in Quartz Hill.

In the wake of that incident, investigators reopened a 1987 case in which the remains of another infant were found stuffed in a shoe box in the garage of a Lake Los Angeles house the couple had been renting.

Conley was about to stand trial in San Fernando Superior Court in Van Nuys when she entered her no-contest pleas--equivalent to pleading guilty--before Judge Meredith C. Taylor on Wednesday. Sentencing was set for April 13.