A 65-year-old Dorchester woman will serve at least two years in prison for stabbing 74-year-old Julius Scott to death in the apartment they shared last year, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano today sentenced VERNA SEWELL (D.O.B. 12/21/44) to a term of two to four years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Framingham. Sewell was convicted Tuesday of involuntary manslaughter for the May 8, 2009, incident in Scott’s Talbot Street apartment. Sewell had been indicted for second-degree murder.

Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum recommended a stronger sentence of four to seven years, citing the “aggravating and mitigating factors” of the case, the defendant, and her background.

Prior to sentencing, Scott’s sister, Florence Grant, remembered the slain man as a man who loved his family.

“I was his ride to all of our family gatherings,” she said. “He loved spending times with his children and grandchildren,” she continued. “All of his grandchildren’s pictures were on his living room and bedroom walls. At times when I spoke with him on the phone, which was many times, he would say they were all smiling at him.”

Scott’s son, Julius, Jr., who testified during the trial, also recalled the slain man. He described how his father, who had worked for a while as a cook and loved cooking, was the one who taught him the skills he would need to eventually work his way up from washing dishes to becoming a chef.

“My father taught me what I needed to do,” he said. “He taught me how to cook, he taught me what I needed to do in the kitchen …. He used to be the life of the gathering. He used to crack jokes, and even if it wasn’t a joke that was funny to some of us, we would laugh too, just because of the way that he would say it.”

Polumbaum, a former domestic violence prosecutor now assigned to the DA’s Homicide Unit, proved that Scott was dead when Boston Police and emergency medical technicians responded to his home at about 7:30 that evening. Scott had called 911 to report that he had been stabbed “in the heart” by a woman who then left his apartment. He said he had removed the knife from his chest.

Scott’s cell phone and a bloody steak knife were found next to the chair. An autopsy revealed that the knife had entered his chest at a downward angle. There was no sign of a struggle when first responders arrived in the apartment.

Katherine Moran was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Sewell was represented by attorney Aviva Jeruchim.