A transgendered woman who stabbed her former boyfriend 32 times and then beat him with a hammer has been handed life in prison without chance of parole for 12 years.

Thomas Forster, who's in the middle of a sex change to become a woman, pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Zachary Waller on June 1, 2010.

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Forster admitted to handcuffing Waller to the bed in her apartment and killing him. The court heard that when Waller told Forster he had left her for another girlfriend, she reached the breaking point and murdered him.

The court heard that Forster was adopted from Mexico at the age of eight, two years later her adoptive mother died and as a teenager she wound up on Vancouver streets addicted to crack cocaine. B.C. Supreme Court Judge Terance Schultes ruled that the guilty plea and her indication of remorse were factors in the decision to allow her to serve just 12 years before applying for parole.