In her short life, Jyniah Te Awa was held against a gas heater, swung around by her hair, hung on the back of a wardrobe door and left in a closed freezer.
The attacks horrified her unsuspecting family and police investigating the crime. Yet none of these events claimed the 10-month-old girl's life.
In the end, Jyniah was killed in a brutal and prolonged attack that spanned a weekend she spent in the care of a trusted family friend.
Tiana Kapea, then 28, was a member of the whanau. She had several young children of her own and had looked after Jyniah and other relatives on many occasions.
Kapea appeared in the High Court at Auckland this week for a trial call-over date but changed her plea to guilty to murdering Jyniah on or about September 23 last year.
She also admitted a charge of cruelty against the child and was remanded in custody for sentencing next month.
On the weekend in September when Kapea was caring for Jyniah, her mother, Lisa Cassidy, took a rare opportunity to go out with friends.
The abuse started on the Friday night. Frustrated by Jyniah's crying, Kapea - who was trying to sleep - kicked the baby twice in an attempt to silence her.
During the next day and a-half, the abuse escalated. When Jyniah again began crying, Kapea hit her over the head. When she kept crying, Kapea used her hand to cover the baby's nose and mouth.
She later told police she was concerned about someone seeing her "'cos I knew what I was doing was bad".
But Kapea repeatedly smothered Jyniah until she stopped screaming.
At one stage, she picked up the baby and threw her against a bedroom wall, Jyniah's head and back taking the force of the impact.
It was then that Kapea decided the child "wasn't looking so good", so she put her in the shower to "make her better".
However, during the next few hours, Kapea shook Jyniah several times with such force her head rolled back and forward.
The baby vomited soon after and was making sounds "like she was wanting air".
This prompted another shower. Kapea later told police she panicked at this time "'cos I knew I had done something wrong".
By this stage, Jyniah's eyes would not open, indicating she had reached the physical limits of her tolerance. It was at this stage Kapea called for an ambulance.
Jyniah died the following day, after which a horrific and sustained pattern of abuse began to come to light.
An autopsy uncovered evidence of other head injuries estimated to be 10 to 15 days old.
Kapea originally told police that Jyniah had fallen three times during the weekend, the first from the bed, the second when she slipped from wet hands in the shower and the third time from a changing table.
But as the police investigation progressed and her version of events failed to match scientific evidence, Kapea eventually told officers a different story.
This included her inflicting other injuries on the child before the weekend she died.
They included smothering Jyniah on a regular basis to stop her crying and holding her hand up against a gas heater three times until she cried.
Kapea also admitted putting Jyniah into a closed chest freezer, hanging her in a closet by the back of her T-shirt and swinging her by her hair.
