Woman who left infant in desert to die gets 20-year sentence

PHOENIX -- A 23-year-old northern Arizona woman who put her 17-month-old daughter in a stroller, pushed her into the desert and left her to die has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Federal Judge David Campbell imposed the top end of a sentencing range stipulated in a plea agreement for Ashley Denise Attson, saying the Chinle woman committed an "intentional, cold-hearted, horrendous killing of an innocent child."

Attson was sentenced Monday after she previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the September 2016 killing on the Navajo Nation.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Attson left her daughter in the desert for four days and nights before returning, retrieving the body and burying it in an animal hole.

The office says the child was born with methamphetamine in her system.