PINCKNEYVILLE, Ill. – A Maine man who admitted strangling his girlfriend and then drowning her 6-year-old daughter in a bathtub will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Perry County Circuit Court Judge James Campanella sentenced Jason E. Cook of Portland to two consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole after the 29-year-old man pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.

Cook was faced with the possibility that he would be sentenced to death if convicted at trial.

“This is for eternity,” Campanella told Cook while ensuring he understood the consequences of the plea. “You cannot get out.”

Cook was charged with killing Sheila K. Sims, 26, and her daughter Erika.

Perry County State’s Attorney David Stanton said family members found the two dead in their Du Quoin apartment on May 19, 2002.

Sims’ other child, 2-year-old Jacob Bealer, was found unharmed in a playpen.

Cook moved from Maine to live with Sims in Illinois after they met through a telephone chat service for singles. He was not the father of either of the children and was considered a prime suspect early on in the investigation.

He was arrested while trying to catch a bus for Maine after the bodies were discovered.

Stanton said Cook provided investigators with a videotaped statement after his arrest, describing how he smothered and choked Sheila Sims to death.

Cook also explained how on the following morning he helped Sims’ daughter wash shampoo from her hair before holding her head underwater until she died, Stanton said.

The killings were the first in Du Quoin since 1996 and left the southern Illinois community of 6,500 in shock.

Defense attorney James Stern of Belleville said after the hearing that his client “often expressed remorse” for the crime.