A10-year-old girl accused her mother of committing acts of bizarre and cruel abuse — some sadistic in nature — supposedly guised as punishment.

Once, the 50-year-old Butler woman made her daughter cut her own nose with a knife.In another, she allegedly stuck a marker in the girl's buttocks.

But perhaps the most disturbing was when the girl was forced to eat her mother's feces, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing Monday for the defendant.

District Judge Pete Shaffer ordered the woman held on 10 charges stemming from the alleged abuse that occurred over several months. Among the charges are three felony accounts of assault, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

The Butler Eagle is not identifying the suspect so as to shield the identity of the girl, due to the nature of some of the crimes.

The defendant is free on bail; her only child remains in foster care under the supervision of the Butler County Children and Youth Services agency.

The case came to light just after midnight Feb. 20 when the girl appeared alone at the Butler police station to report the accusations against her mother. The child had walked nearly a mile from her home to the station on West New Castle Street.

The dark-haired youngster appeared to have little trouble testifying at Monday's hearing, even as her mother, represented by attorney Al Lindsay, sat at the defense table just feet away.

Extremely intelligent for her age, according to authorities, the girl looked straight ahead as she answered in an articulate manner questions posed by Assistant District Attorney Christine Studeny.

She testified that the most recent incident was Feb. 19 when her mother became upset with her daughter for acting up and not cleaning the house quickly enough.

"She said I had my thumb up my butt,"the girl testified.

The mother's punishment, according to the girl, was to make her daughter remove her clothes, after which the defendant inserted a drawing marker into the child's anus.

The act was apparently meant to make the girl feel what it was like to have her "thumb up her butt," according to police.

The girl a short time later dressed, grabbed a favorite stuffed toy frog and ran to the police station. She reported what happened that evening but also made other troubling claims against her mother.

When she showed up at the police station, officers noticed a small cut on the bridge of the girl's nose.

She testified at the hearing that the injury, now a scar, happened earlier in February when her mother ordered her to get a small kitchen knife and cut her own nose. The defendant was apparently upset with her daughter's school performance.

But the woman, not believing the girl was cutting hard enough, took the knife and cut her daughter's nose to the point it started to bleed, the child testified.

Studeny asked the girl if she had any other scars. The child said she had several scars on her stomach from the defendant poking her with a ball point pen.

She also had more than a dozen puncture marks on each foot from her mother allegedly stabbing her with nails.

Additionally, the girl recounted that her mother had pushed her down steps leading from the second floor to the first floor in one case; and from the first floor to the basement in another.

The defendant also allegedly rammed her daughter's head into a stone wall and also struck the girl in the head with a serving plate.

A hospital examination soon after the girl reported the abuse confirmed the scars on the girl's head, feet, and stomach area, prosecutors said.

The girl testified that her mother at times made her "clean all night."If the results weren't satisfactory she would not be allowed to eat for an entire day.

But once, the girl said, she was punished in a horrific manner. "She made me eat (the woman's) feces and urine,"the child testified.

On cross-examination the girl admitted being "fuzzy"on the incident with the marker. She also acknowledged having difficulty remembering some details of the other alleged abuse.

Lindsay, meanwhile, referred to a statement the girl made to police after she first raised the allegations. The girl told police one of her "goals"was to again be with the defendant as soon as possible and be punished "like a normal kid."

"Why do you want that?Lindsay asked.

"Because she's my mother,"the girl replied.

Lindsay declined to comment about the case, following the hearing.

Police Detective Sgt. Mark Peffer, however, is convinced that the abuse, no matter how sensational, occurred.

"(The girl) has been 100 percent consistent with her statements,"Peffer said, "and I believe her completely."