An Allston man who stabbed his estranged wife three dozen times with a pair of pliers before strangling her to death was sentenced today to life in prison, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Christine McEvoy sentenced DA LIN HUANG (D.O.B. 3/16/63) to life behind bars without the possibility of parole – the mandatory term for first-degree murder. A Superior Court jury convicted Huang of that offense on Feb. 17 after a 10-day trial.

“I feel the sentence would be appropriate even if I did have discretion,” McEvoy said. “Mr. Huang received a fair trial and the verdict was a just verdict.”

Prior to sentencing, First Assistant District Attorney Josh Wall – Conley’s chief of all Superior Court prosecutions – told the court that the victim, 30-year-old Gin Hua Xu, “had embraced all the opportunities that immigration had given her” after she came to the United States with Huang from China in 1992.

“She was quite committed to hard work,” Wall said, noting that Xu worked long hours at two jobs, supported herself and her family, and raised her eldest child to become the first in the family to go to college. “She was committed to this country. She embraced her citizenship.”

Wall had harsh words for the crime that took Xu’s life in Huang’s Cambridge Street apartment on Jan. 27, 2001.

“This murder was old-fashioned domestic violence,” the prosecutor said. “It came from an angry, mean, and cruel place in his heart.”

After post-conviction statements to his attorney and a court clinician, Huang was transported to Bridgewater State Hospital as a potential danger to himself or others. He will remain there for an additional six months before beginning his sentence at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction. He must also provide a sample of his DNA to a state database.

“This defendant abused Ms. Xu before he murdered her,” Conley said. “That abuse escalated, as it very often does. What happened here was extreme, but the pattern of violence is one we see too often. Intimate partner violence can affect anyone, regardless of age, ethnicity, orientation, or income. If you feel trapped in a violent relationship, or if you know someone who does, there are people who can help.”

Persons in abusive or violent relationships should call 911 in an emergency or SafeLink, Massachusetts’ statewide domestic violence hotline, at 877-785-2020. The hotline is active 24 hours a day and translation services are available in more than 140 languages.

Huang was represented by attorney Larry Tipton. Catherine Yuan was the victim-witness advocate assigned to the case.