Man gets 40 years for killing woman in Spartanburg

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — A Spartanburg man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty but mentally ill to killing a 54-year-old homeless woman he met just hours before her death.

Prosecutors said Monday that 40-year-old Joseph Creech has been diagnosed and treated for paranoid schizophrenia. He will be housed at a state mental institution before he is sent to prison.

Authorities say Creech strangled and beat 54-year-old Beverly Kimbrell in an abandoned home in April 2010, then told a family member he had killed someone.

Investigators say Creech met Kimbrell at a Waffle House a few hours before she was killed.