INDEPENDENCE, Mo. – A 20-year-old woman pleaded guilty Friday to snatching a pregnant teenager she met online in a foiled plot to steal her unborn child.

Lauren Gash, of Odessa, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assaulting and restraining 18-year-old Amanda Howard inside a Blue Springs motel room a year ago.

Co-defendant Alisa Betts of Atchison, Kan., is charged with kidnapping, assault and felonious restraint.

Prosecutors say Gash planned to cut Howard's baby from her womb, but The Kansas City Star reported on its Web site Friday that Gash and her lawyer said in court that the plan was to steal the baby after Howard delivered the infant.

Prosecutor Traci Stansell, however, said that items police found in the motel room, including scissors, a drop cloth draped over a bed and a multipurpose fishing tool, show that the plan was to cut the baby out.

“Basically, it's a fish-gutting kit,” Stansell told Jackson County Circuit Court Judge W. Stephen Nixon.

In court, Gash said she met Howard on the social networking Web site MySpace.

According to police, Gash and Betts lured the unemployed and single Howard from her home by telling her they would drive her to get clothes for her baby. Along the way, Howard realized something was wrong and tried to use her cell phone but was assaulted with a type of pepper spray, police said.

According to police, Gash bound and gagged Howard after they arrived at the Interstate Inn in Blue Springs. Howard later told police she thought Gash was trying to kill her.

Stansell said a scared Betts left the motel room and called police. Officers arrived at the motel, thinking that they were checking on a distressed pregnant woman. They became suspicious when they saw the duct tape around Howard's neck and in her hair.

Howard, of Clinton, gave birth to a healthy son two days after the attack.

After Friday's hearing, Stansell said she didn't know if Gash had tried to get pregnant herself.

“All I know is that she told people that she was pregnant,” Stansell told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Stansell said Gash registered at Babies “R” Us, held a baby shower and even wore maternity clothes. Just before the incident, she told relatives she that she had given birth to a boy.

Gash faces 15 years in prison each for the kidnapping and assault charges and seven years for felonious restraint. Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 26.