EL CAJON, Calif. -- A man who beat his former girlfriend with a metal pipe, then doused her legs with a flammable liquid and set her afire in his rural East County trailer, was sentenced Friday to life in prison plus 17 years.

Todd Andrew Wimler, 47, was convicted last month of attempted murder, mayhem and spousal abuse.

Deborah Carr -- a single mother of three teenage sons -- suffered first- and second-degree burns, a ruptured spleen and injuries to her face and respiratory tract in the Dec. 6, 2008, attack.

Wimler was arrested a short time later when sheriff's deputies found him hiding in a nearby ravine.

Carr, mostly recovered from her injuries, said in a letter to Judge John Thompson that the recent murder of Chelsea King in Rancho Bernardo showed that felons are not imprisoned long enough.

"I fear for my three sons lives, as well as my own, when and if Todd is released," Carr wrote in the letter read in court by Deputy District Attorney Chantal de Mauregne.

Carr observed the proceedings in the courtroom but did not wish to speak.

Wimler pleaded guilty last November to violating his probation from an earlier felony assault against the same woman.

The victim, who lived in El Cajon, told authorities she had been dating the defendant on-and-off for about two years.

The defendant will have to serve 24 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.