Man who killed ex-girlfriend gets 23 years to life

A New York man has been sentenced to 23 years to life in prison for killing his former girlfriend while she was home from college for Thanksgiving break.

Steven Pieper of Liverpool was sentenced Tuesday morning in Onondaga County Court in Syracuse.

The 21-year-old Pieper pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder in the November slaying of 20-year-old Jenni-Lyn Watson. Pieper admitted strangling and suffocating Watson inside her parents' home in the town of Clay on Nov. 19 and dumping her body in a wooded area in a nearby park.

Watson had returned home from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., for Thanksgiving the day before she was killed. Her body was found eight days later.