FRESNO, Calif. - A central California biochemist convicted of killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Larissa Schuster of Clovis was convicted in December of murdering Timothy Schuster with the special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain.

His half-dissolved body was found a few days after his 2003 death in a barrel that was inside a storage unit his wife had rented.

At the 47-year-old woman's sentencing hearing Friday, a Fresno County Superior Court judge also rejected her attorney's motion for a new trial.