GREENSBURG — The fourth of six people charged in the February 2010 torture-murder of a mentally disabled woman pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 40 to 80 years in prison.

Amber Meidinger, of Greensburg, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to third-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.

She cooperated with Westmoreland County prosecutors who determined she was somewhat less culpable for the treatment of 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty, who was held captive and tortured over two days before she was choked and fatally stabbed in a dingy apartment.

The two men who actually killed Daugherty, Ricky Smyrnes, 27, and Melvin Knight, 24, are on death row for first-degree murder. Smyrnes’ girlfriend at the time, Angela Marinucci, 21, is serving a life sentence for the same charge.

Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck couldn’t pursue the death penalty against Marinucci because she was 17 when Daugherty was killed. But the prosecutor contends Marinucci provoked the attack because she was jealous that Smyrnes had sex with Daugherty.

Daugherty’s body was found wrapped in plastic and stuffed into a garbage can wedged beneath a truck parked in a school parking lot, after Knight and Smyrnes dragged the container several blocks across town during a snowstorm.

Before she died, Daugherty was beaten, had her hair cut, had her purse looted and was forced to drink a vile mixture of human waste, cleaning fluids and drugs, which Smyrnes and the others hoped would kill her.

When Daugherty vomited and survived, the gang of six instead voted to kill her, according to Meidinger, who testified against the previously convicted defendants. Meidinger, who was pregnant with Knight’s child at the time but has since given birth, said Knight stabbed Daugherty and then choked her with a strand of Christmas lights with Smyrnes’ help.