(AP) -- FORSYTH, Mo. (AP) -- A southwest Missouri man is going to prison for the rest of his life for killing his ex-wife in a Branson motel room.

Forty-seven-year-old Stewart Hopkins of Stockton, Missouri was sentenced Thursday in Taney County Circuit Court. Hopkins was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in September following a weeklong trial.

Hopkins stabbed 42-year-old Stacy Birmingham, of Omaha, Arkansas, in the neck as they argued in a room at the Country Bunkhouse Motel in October 2010.

Hopkins was arrested the next day in Tulsa, Okla. According to court testimony, he told officers Birmingham had stabbed him first during an argument about child custody.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, leaving life without parole as the only possible sentence.

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