Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Father Sentenced to 11 Years in Slaying of His Newborn Boy : Crime: The Quartz Hill man had pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter. The infant was found dead in February, 1992, in a trash bin.

LANCASTER —  A Quartz Hill man was sentenced Friday to 11 years in state prison for killing his newborn child.

Ronald E. Wesselmann, 39, received the maximum sentence after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in one of the Antelope Valley’s most gruesome child-abuse slayings.

Wesselmann’s wife, Sharon F. Conley, earlier was ordered to stand trial for first-degree murder in the case.

She also is charged with murder in the 1987 death of another newborn.

The district attorney’s office earlier said it will seek the death penalty against Conley, 35.

In a plea-bargain agreement reached earlier with Wesselmann, prosecutors agreed not to seek additional charges against him for allegedly sexually abusing some of his older daughters.

The couple has seven other children.

Wesselmann was not given credit for the 17 months he has spent in jail since being arrested in February, 1992, after the newborn boy was discovered in a trash bin.

The couple apparently killed the boy by wrapping him in a plastic bag and leaving it in a trash bin at their apartment complex, authorities said.

Also as part of the plea bargain, charges against Wesselmann in the death of a second newborn were dropped, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.

Remains of another infant were found near the couple’s former home in 1987.

At the time, authorities could not establish the cause of death and the pair were not charged.

Authorities earlier said they believe the couple may have killed other newborns in the past.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services had complaints against the couple dating back to 1974 and had twice taken away and then returned their children.

After their parents’ arrests, the six minor children of Wesselmann and Conley were placed in foster homes.