US man slept with rotting corpse for two days

"I'm far from perfect," a US man conceded yesterday, as he was sentenced for strangling a woman, then sleeping for two days with her decomposing body. Michael Lenahan, 31, will serve 19 years to life for the 2007 murder of Lorna Santiago, 24, in the Confucius Plaza apartment in Manhattan he shared with his ailing grandmother.

"I'm far from a perfect person, but I am a good person," the coke-addicted, out-of-work artist insisted to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon. 'I am extremely sorry and extremely remorseful for what happened."



Prosecutors say that after murdering Santiago, Lenahan spent two days surfing websites that dealt with sadomasochism and how to preserve dead bodies - and buying alcohol on her credit card.

When the body was finally discovered - by his mother - Lenahan lied to police that he'd choked her to death "accidentally," and had only intended to stop her from screaming and hitting him during an argument.