AURORA | A 22-year-old man who killed a wheelchair-bound homeless woman in April — and told police he stabbed her because he wanted to know how it felt — will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to murder last week.

Shawn Lewis Lopez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder July 19 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 67-year-old Francine Reade.

The plea agreement came during what was supposed to be Lopez’s preliminary hearing and brought the case to a quick end.

“The swift resolution of this case spares Francine Reade’s family from reliving these horrific events during a trial. The defendant received the same maximum sentence he would have received if convicted after a trial and the only appropriate sentence – life in prison without parole,” District Attorney Dave Young said in a statement announcing the plea agreement.

In court documents, police said Lopez smiled as he told officers he used a knife to kill Reade because he liked the closeness involved in stabbing someone.

“I like knives, just because it takes a real crazy, sadistic mother f***er to walk up to somebody and just stab them. Because you’re up close and personal. And you know that you’re the last face that person is ever going to see, in their pathetic little life,” he told detectives.

Lopez, who has been in jail since his arrest a few days after the April 25 slaying, told police he saw Reade sitting in her wheelchair in front of a liquor store near East Colfax Avenue and Chambers Road.

He said he pushed her wheelchair behind a nearby grocery store and when Reade asked where they were headed told her “don’t worry about it.” While he pushed the chair Lopez decided he was going to kill Reade and rob her.

Once behind the store, he pulled out the knife and stabbed Reade in the neck before taking the loose change in her purse and going to a nearby gas station to buy chewing tobacco.

In handing down the sentence last week, Adams County District Judge Jill-Ellyn Straus said the slaying was senseless.

“I will never understand this type of a crime,” she said. “I can’t begin to imagine the fear and terror Ms. Reade must have felt in her last moments.”

In addition to the life sentence, Lopez was sentenced to an additional six years in prison on drug and escape charges from a separate case.

Police also arrested Lopez’s roommate, Michael Snyder, 20, on accessory charges after police say he helped Lopez bleach the switch blade used to kill Reade. Investigators wrote in court documents that Snyder knew Lopez stabbed someone, but he didn’t know the person had died when he helped bleach the knife.

Snyder has since posted bail and been released from jail. He is due in court next month for a disposition hearing.