GREENSBURG — A state appeals court has overturned the mandatory life sentence given to a woman who was 17 when she helped several other people torture and kill a mentally disabled woman.

The Superior Court ordered Angela Marinucci, now 21, be resentenced for her role in the February 2010 killing of Jennifer Daugherty. The decision is based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing automatic mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders.

The court let stand Marinucci’s first-degree murder conviction, so Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said he’ll ask that Marinucci be given life in prison when she’s resentenced.

The U.S. Supreme Court didn’t bar judges from imposing life sentences on people who were under 18, but in such circumstances it prevents a mandatory life sentence, which is what a first-degree murder conviction carries in Pennsylvania.

Psychiatric ward suicide investigatedMCKEESPORT — County police are investigating the suicide of a woman who used a plastic bag to suffocate herself in the psychiatric ward of a hospital affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC spokesman Gloria Kreps said UPMC McKeesport is investigating the death of a woman last Wednesday, but couldn’t provide specific information. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said 23-year-old Samantha Bokin died after she was found on the floor with a bag over her head.The woman’s parents said they were initially told only that their daughter had turned blue and that a doctor tried for 25 minutes to revive her. Only later were they told about the bag.