Ohio man gets life without parole for killing wife

CLEVELAND (AP) — A three-judge panel has handed down a life sentence without parole for an Ohio man who killed his wife, a marriage counselor who had been warned months earlier to escape an abusive home life.

The same Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judges who accepted the guilty plea from 39-year-old Maurice Lyons sentenced him today.

He avoided a possible death penalty with a plea bargain.

He pleaded guilty to charges including aggravated murder, kidnapping and rape in last July’s death of 42-year-old Tonya Hunter-Lyons.

She was stabbed 17 times in the chest, neck, abdomen and back in front of her 4-year-old son.