ELYRIA — A three-judge panel has imposed a sentence of life without parole on convicted killer Nicole Diar.

Nicole Diar during a break in her 2005 trial. Her sentence was overturned by the state Supreme Court in December 2008. (CT file photo.)

Diar, 34, had agreed to serve the life without parole sentence rather than risk a jury sentencing her to death again for the 2003 murder of her 4-year-old son, Jacob Diar.

Visiting Judge Judith Cross warned Diar before she and Lorain County Common Pleas Court judges Raymond Ewers and Christopher Rothgery went to deliberate that they weren’t bound to honor the agreement.

Diar camly answered “yes, ma’am” when Cross asked her if she understood.

The Ohio Supreme Court overturned Diar’s death sentence two years, but upheld her guilty conviction on aggravated murder and other charges.

Jacob’s body was pulled from Diar’s Lorain home after a fire gutted the building. Prosecutors argued during Diar’s trial that she set the fire to cover up killing her son.

Check back at Chroniclet.com for more on this story as it develops.