Mom knocks on neighbor’s door at 5 a.m. to say she killed 4-year-old, Utah cops say

A Utah woman knocked on her next-door neighbor’s door at 5 a.m. Tuesday with a shocking confession — she’d killed her own 4-year-old daughter, KSL reports.

The neighbor called police, who found the mother waiting for them on her own front porch in West Valley City, Deseret News reported.

Police found the slain girl in the basement, along with a sleeping 6-year-old boy elsewhere in the home, KJZZ reported.

Investigators are working on searching the rest of the home and interviewing the woman, along with her mother, who owns the house but was not home at the time, The Gephardt Daily says.

Officers later identified the woman as Nicole Teri Lester, 29, of West Valley City, and said she had been arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, police reported on Twitter.

“It’s hard to even comprehend something like this,” said police spokeswoman Roxeanne Vainuku, KSL reported. “This is something that’s extremely difficult.”

West Valley City, population about 130,000, is a suburb of Salt Lake City.

This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 8:31 AM.