A man accused of stabbing his ex-wife 72 times in her Bellevue condo two years ago pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in King County Superior Court on Wednesday, with prosecutors recommending a 25-year prison sentence for the brutal slaying of Nataliya Vabishchevich.

Vabishchevich was found stabbed to death in her condo on the 12700 block of Northeast 10th Place just before noon on June 17, 2013, with stab wounds to her head, neck, chest and arms. Her ex-husband, Aleksandr Polak, was interviewed by police soon after the murder, and was seen later that day purchasing a bus ticket in Seattle. Police followed him to Los Angeles, where he was arrested on June 21, allegedly en route to Mexico, court documents state. He was found with $5,000 hidden in his baseball cap.

The couple had divorced in 2007, however, Polak spent the next six years traveling to Bellevue from his home country of Latvia on-and-off in an effort to reconcile with his ex-wife, according to court documents. Polak moved to Edmonds in May 2013, a little more than a month before the murder.

Vabishchevich had lived with her son at the time of her murder, the then 14-year-old telling police his mother had been alive when he headed off to school on the morning of June 17, 2013. She was working for Pure Chiropractic of Bellevue and Eastside Life Chiropractic of Redmond at the time of her death, both holding fundraiser’s for Vabishchevich’s son following the murder.

Polak will be sentenced 1 p.m. May 1 at the King County Courthouse. He faces a sentencing range of 20 to 26 1/2 years in prison.