AUBURN -- A Canton man convicted of robbing, raping and murdering his pregnant co-worker before burying her body in a shallow grave in Lewiston has been handed the maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

After a three-day trial in September in Androscoggin County Superior Court, Richard Dwyer was found guilty of strangling 38-year-old Donna Paradis, who was eight months pregnant.

The 45-year-old Dwyer told Justice Thomas Delehanty II that he was sorry about Paradis' death but that he didn't kill her and hopes that police will find the person who did.

Prosecutors used DNA evidence to link Dwyer to the slaying and produced surveillance tapes that showed him purchasing a pick ax and shovel on the night the victim disappeared.

Paradis had disappeared in October 2007. Her body was found the following month near an all-terrain vehicle trail behind Lewiston's Promenade Mall.