ROANOKE, Va. - A man who dumped his girlfriend's body and drowned her cats has been sentenced to a decade in prison. How 38-year-old Edme Merle-Perez died remains a mystery. Twenty-three-year-old Dayshaun Keith Kent says the mother of five overdosed on Benadryl.

Kent and Merle-Perez were living together when she was reported missing last March, according to CBS affiliate WDBJ. He initially told police that she had packed up her belongings and left.

The Roanoke Times reports that Kent admitted he buried her body in the woods in Virginia sometime last spring. He also stuffed her two cats in a backpack and tossed them into a creek.

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He continued living in her home and used her credit cards.

Police found the cats last April and found the woman's body three months later. Prosecutors accepted Kent's guilty pleas to improper disposal of a body and felony animal cruelty. He was sentenced Tuesday to five years for the woman's death and two-and-a-half years for killing each cat.