DIXON, Ill. (AP) -- A northern Illinois judge has sentenced a Chicago man to 60 years in prison for the suffocation death of a 35-year-old Dixon woman in 2009.

The Telegraph in Dixon reports that a Lee County judge gave the maximum sentence to 54-year-old Byron Adams on Monday. Defense attorney David Mandrgoc had asked for the minimum 20 years. He appealed the sentence shortly after it was given. Adams was convicted in October on three counts of first-degree murder in the death of Margaret Atherton, a mother of three.

Atherton's husband, Ryan Atherton, spoke to the judge before the sentencing. He told the judge his wife was a caring, loving woman who was involved in her church. He said she had just earned a degree to become an EKG technician.

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