NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma judge on Friday sentenced a man to death for beheading a co-worker in 2014 at a food processing plant.

Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley accepted a jury's recommendation of the death penalty over life in prison without parole for Alton Nolen, 33. Jurors earlier this year convicted him of decapitating 54-year-old Colleen Hufford when he attacked her and others at the Vaughan Foods plant.

During the trial, prosecutors played recordings of Nolen confessing to the stabbings while he was hospitalized following the attack. In the recordings, Nolen says he...