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A Lincoln 17-year-old pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder for stabbing her father to death in 2022.

Sallie Gilmer will face at least 20 years in prison up to life at her sentencing in January for Jesse Gilmer Jr.'s killing.

"Do you understand that?" Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen asked her Friday, regarding the possible penalty.

"Yes," Gilmer said.

In exchange for her plea, Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Charles Byrd reduced the charge from first-degree murder and dropped a second felony for use of a deadly weapon (a knife) to commit the crime.

Byrd said, had the case gone to trial, the state's evidence would have shown that just after 4 p.m. Oct. 3, 2022, police were called to the Gilmer family's apartment on a report of a stabbing.

Police found her father, Jesse Gilmer Jr., dead, with stab wounds to his forehead, chest, left shoulder and arm, one of which struck an artery.

Byrd said in an interview with police, Sallie Gilmer, then 15, admitted she had started planning her father's murder, allegedly with her boyfriend, Isaac Honigschmidt, about a week earlier.

She told police she had put on a black hoodie so she wouldn't get blood on her clothes. And she used a knife that her boyfriend had given her for protection, stabbed her dad with it, then gave it back to her boyfriend after.

"Ms. Gilmer stated she couldn't remember the exact amount of times she stabbed Mr. Gilmer, but knew it was at least three," Byrd said. "She also pointed out during the interview the places she remembered stabbing him."

Byrd said the autopsy showed Jesse Gilmer had died of multiple sharp force injuries. He had six stab wounds in all. 

When Byrd was done, the judge asked Gilmer: "Is that essentially what happened?"

"Yes," she said.

According to court records, Gilmer's father had vocally expressed his dislike of her boyfriend, which caused problems between them.

Police came to believe the two made a plan to kill him, which involved leaving their phones at Lincoln Southeast High School, where they both were students, while Honigschmidt took her to her family's apartment to stab him. Then, they returned to school for a short time, got their phones and went back to the apartment so Gilmer could "discover" her father dead.

Jesse Gilmer Jr. was a pastor, Air Force veteran and volunteer at Lincoln Public Schools, according to his obituary.