50-year sentence in dismemberment killing

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich., Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A Michigan man was sentenced Thursday to 50 to 80 years in prison for strangling his wife and cutting her body into 14 pieces in his father's tool-and-die shop.

Stephen Grant, 38, will be at least 88 years old before he is eligible for parole, The Detroit News reported.

"Today justice was served," Eric Smith, who prosecuted the case, told reporters after the sentencing. "Nothing will bring back Tara Grant, but also nothing will bring back Stephen Grant. This sentence banishes Stephen and for that we are forever grateful."

Grant did not address the court. Alicia Standerfer, Tara Grant's sister and guardian of the couple's two children, read a prepared statement calling Grant a psychopath.

Standerfer also described two pictures that her 7-year-old niece drew for her therapist. One, of her mother's funeral, showed her father under a rock while the other said, "My dad thinks he has power."

The children have said they saw their father killing their mother early last year.

Grant was convicted of second-degree murder after a two-week trial in December.