16-year-old pleads guilty to murder of 10-year-old Kiaya Campbell

BRIGHTON, Colo. (KDVR) -- The teenager accused of killing a 10-year-old Thornton girl pleaded guilty first-degree murder on Friday and is facing life in prison when he's sentenced next month.

Aidan Zellmer, 16, was charged as an adult in the death of Kiaya Campbell on June 7, 2017, after they left her father's home to go to a shopping center.

Neighbors found her battered body in a ravine the next day. She had been beaten to death, according to an Adams County Coroner's Office autopsy report.

Campbell suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to the head as well as wounds to several fingers, according to an autopsy report.

His mother was in a relationship with Campbell's father at the time.

Zellmer was facing four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault on a child. All of the charges were dropped with the guilty plea.