MILWAUKEE — A woman accused of torturing and starving her teenage stepdaughter and of keeping the child locked in the basement of their Madison, Wis., home pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts of child abuse.

The 43-year-old woman, whose trial was to begin Monday morning in Dane County, pleaded to one count of first-degree reckless endangering safety and to one count of causing mental harm to a child. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, four other felony charges were dropped but read into the record. The woman faces up to 25 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.

The girl ran away from her home in February 2012 and was found wandering through her neighborhood by a passing motorist. The girl, who was 15, was barefoot, thinly clothed and weighed 68 pounds.

Records obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showed that the girl had suffered at the hands of her stepmother, father and stepbrother for years, and that officials at various agencies, though warned of her plight, failed to rescue her:

In January 2011, a woman driving past the girl’s home called police after trying to engage the girl
in a conversation. The woman said the girl seemed fragile and that her bare feet were purple. Two Madison police officers went to the girl’s home, but left when no one answered the door.

In 2007, police investigated an allegation that the girl had been molested. The girl would not corroborate the allegation.

Records showed that police visited the home 10 times while the girl lived there. Most of the reports that brought police to the home concerned the girl’s stepbrother.

In November 2011, in an unrelated matter, the now 19-year-old stepbrother pleaded no contest to contributing to the delinquency of a child and two counts of sexual assault involving a 13-year-old girl. State probation officers visited home three times, the last less than a month before the girl ran away.

According to a criminal complaint, the girl was beaten, starved, sexually abused and forced to eat her own excrement.

Shortly after the girl was rescued in 2012, a doctor specializing in child abuse examined the girl and diagnosed her condition as “serial child torture with prolonged exposure to definite starvation.”

Last month, a Dane County jury found the girl’s 41-year-old father guilty of felony child neglect but deadlocked on four other charges. A sentencing date has not been set.

The girl’s stepbrother, charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of child abuse, is scheduled to be tried in June.

To protect the girl’s identity, the Journal Sentinel is not naming the members of her family.