MILWAUKEE, WI (WTAQ) - Corey Benson gained attention for overcoming a childhood of poverty and a broken home by becoming his high school’s valedictorian and earning a scholarship to Purdue University.

Despite the feel-good story, the 28 year old Benson will now spend the rest of his life in prison.

Even at trial, he has never accepted responsibility for killing his girlfriend’s two year old son in 2011, and also severely injuring the boy the year before.

Benson was convicted last March of the severly beating his son.  He claimed he found the boy facedown in the bathtub. 

He was given a life sentence Friday by a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, without the possibility of parole.