EUGENE — A woman convicted of torturing and killing her 15-year-old daughter apologized in a statement to the Eugene jury considering whether to sentence her to death for the murder.

The Eugene Register-Guard reported that Angela McAnulty spoke for the first time to the jury on Wednesday, acknowledging she fatally abused her daughter, but adding: “I did not want my little girl to die.”

The 42-year-old McAnulty did not take the witness stand, choosing instead to make a personal statement not subject to cross-examination by prosecutors.

McAnulty pleaded guilty to aggravated murder the day her trial was set to open for torturing, beating and starving Jeanette Maples to death in 2009. The jury was set to begin deliberations Thursday on whether McAnulty should be sentenced to death or life in prison.