Judge Clayton Davis on Wednesday sentenced Dwane Edward Fox to the maximum 40 years in prison for killing Mychel Cleaver on Jan. 9, 2013.

A jury in September convicted Fox, 49, of manslaughter for beating up and strangling the 48-year-old Cleaver and then dumping her body in a ditch on Friesen Road, south of Lake Charles. Fox admitted killing Cleaver, his sometimes girlfriend, but his defense attorneys said he acted in self-defense.

Fox, who was charged with second-degree murder, did not testify during the trial.

Before the sentencing, defense attorney Andy Casanave told Davis that Fox is “hard-working” and “involved with his family.” He asked Davis for a sentencing “on the low end of the range” because what happened that January day “is so unlikely to happen again.”

Prosecutor Christy Rhodes May said a statement Fox made in a presentence investigation was a “completely new set of events” and that he tried to create a different version of what took place. She said he admitted to Calcasieu Sheriff’s Office detectives that he choked her, but later denied doing so.

Casanave said the events Fox described to him before the trial had not changed.

A sister of Cleaver’s told Davis she “wants to forget” Fox and not “ever have to see him again.”

“For my own heart, I want to be a forgiving person so that I can have peace,” she said. “But, on the other hand, she was a very important part of our family.”

Davis said he chose the maximum sentence because the “circumstances of this particular homicide were horrendous.”

At first, Fox told detectives he had dropped off Cleaver at a tent city near the O.D. Johnson ballfields. But he admitted killing her and trying to cover it up after detectives told him blood was found in his Harvard Street home and his car.

Fox must serve 85 percent, or 34 years, of his sentence. Davis gave him credit for time served since his arrest in January 2013. At some point during his sentence, he will be eligible for parole.(MGNonline)