MOUNT VERNON — A Sedro-Woolley couple received the maximum possible sentence Wednesday for the murder of a disabled and incapacitated man in October 2006.

Kenneth Ammons, 28, will serve 22 years and four months for his role in killing Herschell Rogers. His girlfriend and accomplice, Rachel Garver, 22, was sentenced to 20 years and four months. They had pleaded guilty last week to second-degree murder.

Both sentences, handed down in Skagit Superior Court, were at the top of the standard range. Ammons’ sentence was longer because he was already a convicted felon.

On Oct. 9, 2006, Ammons and Garver drove Rogers, 26, to a remote campsite north of Hamilton and crushed his skull with a hammer. Rogers was under the influence of alcohol or drugs and was unconscious during the drive and the attack.

Rogers did not speak and communicated by writing. Family members believe he also may have had mental health problems along with his drug addiction.

Garver’s lawyer presented evidence that Garver had been sexually abused since the age of 4. Superior Court Judge Michael Rickert, while sympathetic, did not show mercy in his sentencing.

“If I could get more (of a sentence) I would, but the state won’t let me,” Rickert told the defendants. A relatively recent state law restricts judges from giving exceptional sentences outside of the standard range, the judge said.