AUGUSTA (AP) – A man who was convicted of murder after serving time for previous violent activities was sentenced Monday to 70 years in prison for murdering his 74-year-old mother-in-law in November 2004.

David Grant, 56, of Augusta, was sentenced in Kennebec County Superior Court for the slaying of Janet Hagerthy in Farmingdale. Hagerthy was choked, beaten and stabbed to death following an argument over how to start a snowblower.

Even with time off for good behavior, Grant faces nearly 60 years behind bars for a killing that prosecutors said bordered on torture.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson noted during the 1 hour sentencing hearing that Hagerthy had been beaten, strangled and stabbed over a 15-minute span. The time factor involved in the brutal acts was “an extraordinary aggravating factor” in determining Grant’s sentence, he said.

Justice Nancy Mills also took into account Grant’s previous record of violence. He served time in prison after a 1988 conviction for attacking his estranged wife. Grant was accused of trying to suffocate the woman with a plastic bag and trying to drown her by holding her head underwater.

During Grant’s trial for Hagerthy’s murder, his defense attorney Christopher MacLean told the jury that Grant suffered from psychosis brought on by heavy drug use. He said Grant was intoxicated with cocaine and was out of touch with reality when he killed Hagerthy.

Benson responded that intoxication is not a defense.

After the crime, Grant bound the victim’s body and drove around with it in his pickup truck before dumping the body in a field a few blocks from her Farmingdale home. He was arrested hours later after he crashed his pickup truck in the median of Interstate 95 in Newport.

After his arrest, Grant underwent emergency surgery to treat self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck.