LOS ANGELES -- The grief-stricken parents of an honors student who vanished nearly two years ago heard a convicted sex offender, who met the 19- year-old woman online, admit Wednesday that he plied her with drugs and dumped her body at sea after she apparently overdosed.

John Steven Burgess -- who is scheduled to meet privately Thursday with Donna Jou's family to discuss her death -- is facing five years in state prison when he returns to Los Angeles Superior Court on May 18 for sentencing.

Burgess pleaded guilty to a felony involuntary manslaughter charge and a misdemeanor count of concealment of an accidental death.

When asked by Deputy District Attorney David Walgren to describe the circumstances of the San Diego State University student's June 23, 2007, death, the 36-year-old defendant said he answered an advertisement she placed on craigslist.com and brought her to his Palms area house, where there was alcohol and drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and heroin.

"I gave her some," Burgess said, as the victim's family sat two rows behind him in court.

Burgess -- who pleaded no contest in October 2007 to failing to register as a sex offender and was sentenced to three years in prison -- said he awoke in the morning and "she was gone ... she was dead."

"And uh, I just, I panicked and got scared and ... I made a really bad decision. And I went down to my sailboat and I just, uh, I gave her to the sea," he said.

"Did you put her body in the ocean?" the prosecutor asked.

"Yes, sir," Burgess responded.

The deputy district attorney noted that Burgess had gone with him and detectives to the marina to try to find the young woman's body.

When asked if he would meet privately with Jou's family to answer their questions, Burgess responded, "Absolutely."

Outside court, attorney Gloria Allred said the woman's parents, Reza and Nili, are "very relieved that Mr. Burgess has admitted his role in the death of their beloved daughter" and are going to have "an extraordinary opportunity to have a conversation with him to ask him any and all questions that they may have of him in reference to what happened and what his role was."

Allred noted that the woman's parents are hopeful that her body -- which has not yet been found -- will be recovered some day so they can bury her remains.

"I miss her so much. I am very devastated. I love my daughter very much. The system is using a criminal's statement as a sole source of information," Jou's father, Reza, said outside court, as her mother wept.

Burgess was charged March 17 in connection with the Rancho Santa Margarita woman's death -- just days before he was to be released from prison for failing to register as a sex offender.

Two other charges filed against Burgess in March -- one felony count each of sale, transportation or offer to sell heroin and sale, transportation or offer to sell cocaine -- are expected to be dismissed when he is sentenced.

At a news conference hours after the charges were filed, Los Angeles police Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said he believed Donna Jou probably died of a drug overdose and was dumped into the ocean somewhere off the Southern California coast.

Detectives said Burgess gave Jou heroin and cocaine before she passed out while seated in a chair in Burgess' bedroom.

"A lot of people at the party corroborated it," Los Angeles police Detective Ron Ito said in March.