Fidel Lopez, 26, from Sunrise, Florida, was sentenced Thursday in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom to life without the possibility of parole for disemboweling his girlfriend. He had earlier pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and sexual battery in the September 2015 death of Maria Nemeth. He changed his plea to avoid the death penalty.

He told police he turned into a monster when she shouted her ex-husband’s name twice during a session of drunken intimacy in their apartment. He smashed a sliding glass door, punched holes in the wall and ripped off a closet door in his rage, investigators said. He then stabbed her repeatedly, and as she lay unconscious on the floor he inserted a beer bottle, a hair flat iron and his fist and arm up to his elbow into her vagina and anus, pulling out some of her intestines, investigators said.

When he realized she wasn’t breathing, he washed his hands and went outside for a smoke, investigators said. When she didn’t regain consciousness, he called 911. Police found her naked body on the bathroom floor near a lot of blood and bodily tissue when they arrived at the apartment. There were also sliced limes and half a bottle of tequila in the kitchen.

At the sentencing hearing, Lopez apologized to Nemeth’s family for the gruesome killing. They said they were devastated by her death and asked that he be sentenced to the maximum prison term allowed under law.