A man who cut out his girlfriend's tongue and let her bleed to death has been given a life sentence without chance of parole.

The Orange County judge who sentenced Frank Mallory today called it an unjustified and extraordinarily brutal murder.

Prosecutors said the 50-year-old longshoreman attacked Patricia Dunthorne three years ago at the La Palma home they shared. Police found Dunthorne's decomposed body in the garage weeks after her killing.

At his trial, Mallory denied killing Dunthorne or cutting out her tongue. He testified that he thought she died of a drug and alcohol overdose.

In February, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of torture.