KITTANNING, Pa. -- Janet Crawford had hoped that cooperating with prosecutors and testifying against her live-in boyfriend James Tatar would earn her a break.

Instead, she ended up the same as him -- a murderer serving a life sentence.

Crawford's fate was revealed by Armstrong County Judge Kenneth Valasek yesterday morning.

Valasek made his ruling in October, but it was sealed pending the conclusion of Tatar's jury trial last week in the death of the couple's 4-year-old daughter, Kristen.

In September, Crawford pleaded guilty to a general charge of homicide in her daughter's death.

The judge listened to evidence in the case and had to decide what degree of homicide Crawford committed -- first- or third-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.

The judge found Crawford, 36, guilty of first-degree murder for what he called one of the most heinous crimes in Pennsylvania's history.

Crawford had nothing to say to the judge or people in the courtroom after the verdict was read. She was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without a chance for parole. Valasek tacked on an additional seven years for endangering the welfare of a child, and seven more years for abuse of a corpse.

Crawford found Kristen's body in the attic of their Parks Township home on July 6, 2003, after she'd been locked there with no food or water for six days.

She admitted in her guilty plea that she and her 5-year-old son, Nicholas, cut pieces of yellow duct tape to give to Tatar to help dispose of Kristen's body.

Tatar, 42, wrapped their daughter in layers of newspaper and industrial-strength trash bags before stuffing her 11-pound frame inside a Coleman cooler and into a garbage can outside. State troopers found the girl a month later after family members called child-welfare workers voicing concern over Kristen's safety.

Both Crawford and Tatar initially faced the death penalty, but when Crawford offered to plead guilty and testify against her live-in boyfriend, prosecutors took capital punishment off the table.

It was a potentially risky move since Crawford entered her plea only to a general homicide charge and not first-degree murder.

But prosecutors say they had no doubts Crawford would be found guilty of the most severe charge, and with her cooperation, they'd be sure to get Tatar.

"We needed to bring Jim [Tatar] into this picture as an active participant," said Chase McClister, the assistant district attorney who tried the case. "Without Janet, or people like Donald Wilson (who testified to Tatar's abuse of Kristen), Jim could get on the stand and claim ignorance for the whole thing."

Which is exactly what Tatar did. When he testified on his own behalf, he tried to push all the responsibility for Kristen's death onto Crawford.

"I think he believed he could talk his way out of this," McClister said.

Instead, the jurors glared at Tatar. They never once smiled or laughed, even when he was trying to make them like him.

"I think, definitely, he did himself more harm than good," McClister said.

Prosecutors thought about making a deal with Tatar, but District Attorney Scott Andreassi said Tatar would never have admitted to anything.

Instead, they used Crawford to show it was Tatar who came up with the idea of withholding food from Kristen, and it was Tatar who had the idea to lock the child in the attic.

Even though he wasn't home as often as Crawford -- because he worked out of town -- those acts made him equally guilty, the prosecutors said.

"We believed then, and we believe now, the brains of this operation was Jim Tatar," Andreassi said.

For Crawford, taking the plea deal was her best option, said her lawyer, Preston Younkins.

She offered the prosecution information to fill in the gaps in Tatar's case, and at the same time, she saved her own life.

"From my perspective, it was strategic," Younkins said.

One of Crawford's motivations to make the plea was for her to set the record straight about Tatar's involvement in Kristen's death, he said.

But prosecutors don't buy it.

"I don't believe we've ever gotten the full truth from her," McClister said.