DANVILLE — A Hendricks County judge today sentenced Joseph Warnock to a 55-year prison sentence for the murder of his estranged wife.

Judge Robert Freese accepted a plea agreement that Warnock’s attorneys reached with prosecutors in September.

Angela Warnock, 38, Brownsburg, was brutally murdered by her estranged husband in June with their two young daughters in the room. Intoxicated by drugs and alcohol, Joseph Warnock used a 12-inch knife to stab and slash his wife more than 50 times, investigators said.

Warnock will not be eligible for parole or a pardon, but under "good time’’ rules could be released from prison after serving about half of his sentence.

Six members of Angela Warnock’s family testified for nearly an hour, calling Joseph Warnock a cold-blooded killer who ruined their lives.

In a brief statement, Warnock said, "Words cannot express how heartbroken and sorry that I feel.’’

Because the 41-year-old man pleaded guilty, County Prosecutor Patricia Baldwin said, he avoided a trial and spared his daughters, who are 12 and 8, from having to testify about the killing of their mother.

As he attacked, the girls ran, as their mother had taught them, police said. The girls hid in a closet and called 911.

Angela Warnock, a former beauty-pageant winner in Hawaii, was well known in the Brownsburg community as a stylist at a local beauty salon.

Four days before her death, Angela Warnock received a protective court order to try to keep her husband away from their daughters and the family home. In a court hearing, she described him as addicted to drugs and alcohol.

He swore in the same court hearing that he would never hurt her.

Stephen J. Johnson, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, said 55 years is probably close to the standard prison term in similar cases, given Warnock’s expressions of remorse and lack of criminal history. Indiana law identifies specific circumstances that would allow for a longer sentence after a murder conviction, but none of them was established in this case.

Bills have been introduced in the Indiana General Assembly to add domestic violence as an aggravating factor in a murder sentence, but none has been passed.

In Hendricks County, three recent domestic violence deaths have raised concerns. The deaths led county leaders to look into creating a task force to review previous deaths and report to state agencies that track statewide trends in domestic violence. Also, government and community leaders decided to revive the long-dormant Hendricks County Coalition Against Domestic Violence.