A woman who admitted to killing a New York subway rider by pushing him in front of an oncoming train was sentenced to 24 years in prison on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

Erika Menendez had pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The 33-year-old Queens woman had been seen talking to herself and pacing back and forth on a 7 train platform on Dec. 27, 2012, before she shoved Sunando Sen onto the tracks. Sen was struck by the train and died of multiple blunt force trauma, the news service recalled.

Menendez had told investigators that her act was religiously motivated, and the New York Times said prosecutors accepted her manslaughter plea because of her "substantial psychiatric history and drug problems," Reuters noted.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police in reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, according to CBS New York.

Menendez stood silently and then thanked Judge Gregory Lasak as the latter handed down the sentence, the New York Daily News detailed. Lasak called the cold-blooded murder at the Sunnyside station an unconscionable act.

"That's a horrible way to die," the judge said. "You picked out Mr. Sen, and you stood behind him, and you followed him."

Assistant District Attorney Peter Lomp, meanwhile, called the case one of the worst in his career.

"It's about as horrific a crime as I can possibly recall in 22 years of prosecuting," he said.

Friends and co-workers told CBS New York that the "good and honorable" Sen was an Indian immigrant and Hindu; he had been the second commuter to die after being pushed in front of a New York subway train in December of 2012 following the earlier death of Ki-Suck Han at a midtown Manhattan station.

In Han's case, a homeless man, 30-year-old Naeem Davis, was later arrested and charged with murder; Davis claimed he was acting in self-defense.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, meanwhile, called the killings "every subway commuter's worst nightmare," according to CBS New York.