Mother Pleads No Contest in Murder

A woman accused of standing by while her live-in boyfriend rammed her 12-year-old daughter’s head through a wall for spilling a can of urine pleaded no contest to second-degree murder Monday.

Wanda Smelser, 44, could get up to 50 years at sentencing Oct. 5.

The girl was locked naked in the basement, forced to use a tin can as a toilet and starved until she weighed 51 pounds at her death last year, prosecutors said. She died of blows to the head.

The boyfriend, Norman Hoverter, had pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence.