DEVILS LAKE (AP) - A man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing his girlfriend and setting her body on fire before it was found by a farmer in a ditch.

Steven Torkelsen, 55, of Cando, was convicted by a jury last week of killing Rebecca Flaa, whose burned body was found in a ditch near Cando in June 2004.

Judge Lee Christofferson followed prosecutors' sentencing recommendations Wednesday, saying he found "very little that could justify a lenient sentence" for Torkelsen.

"Steve Torkelsen took his boots to the head of his live-in girlfriend and burned her body and he's shown absolutely no remorse," said Lonnie Olson, the Ramsey County state's attorney, and one of the prosecutors in the case.

Life without parole was the only logical sentence for "an absolutely brutal crime," Olson said.

Authorities said earlier that Flaa, 48, had no permanent address but had been living in the area at times over several years and that she was visiting Torkelsen at the time of her death.

They said she apparently died of extensive head injuries before her body was set on fire.

Torkelsen's attorney, Thomas Merrick, had recommended 50 years in prison with all but 20 years suspended.

Torkelsen's mother, Leona, asked the judge for leniency.

"I would like to see him out and do the work that he loved," she said.

The state Supreme Court last year threw out Torkelsen's original guilty plea in the case and sent it back to district court.