A B.C. man has been sentenced to life in prison for beating a woman to death in an attack so brutal her face became dislocated from her head.

Robert Bennight, 59, killed Denise Fabbro in his Downtown Eastside Vancouver apartment on June 12, 2007.

He was convicted of second-degree murder by a B.C. Supreme Court jury in May. A life sentence is mandatory for that offence, and on Monday, Judge Christopher Grauer ruled that Bennight must serve 18 years before he is eligible for parole.

According to court documents, Fabbro, who was in her 50s, had travelled willingly with Bennight to his social housing unit shortly before the murder.

"For reasons known only to you, you then subjected this impoverished middle-aged woman to a vicious beating of astonishing brutality," Grauer scolded Bennight in his sentencing decision.

"You smashed her head so hard and so often as to cause the dislocation of her face from her skull, fracturing the deepest bones of the head, inflicting the brain damage that caused her death, and soaking your apartment in her blood."

Bennight then watched as Fabbro died before he finally called 911.

"Her last moments of consciousness must have been terrifying indeed," Grauer wrote.

Bennight was in a car accident in 1983, and suffered what the judge described as "significant" brain damage in the crash. But Grauer said that because Bennight was found fit to stand trial, his injury doesn't excuse him from severe punishment.

"Rather, in so far as such evidence is proffered as an explanation for his violent tendencies, it only emphasizes how unfortunately dismal are his prospects for rehabilitation," Grauer wrote.

Pointing to Bennight's criminal past, the judge admonished him: "Your behaviour has been characterized by violence and aggression, lack of impulse control, psychopathic personality traits and a tendency to minimize your own responsibility."

Between 1977 and 1997, Bennight was convicted of at least 16 criminal offences -- mostly drug and alcohol-related -- in the U.S., where he had lived since the age of three.

He was then deported back to Canada, where his criminal activity became more violent, and he was convicted of several assault and weapons-related offences.