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A serial killer — who at one time faced murder charges in Utah for dumping the body of a woman near Interstate 15 — pleaded guilty this week in Texas to killing the woman and her husband.
Robert Ben Rhoades, 66, avoided a possible death penalty conviction in Texas by accepting two life prison sentences as he entered his plea to two counts of capital murder.
The body of 28-year-old Douglas Scott Zyskowski was found near Interstate 10 in Texas in 1990, but wasn't identified until 1992. The remains of his newlywed 24-year-old wife, Patricia Walsh, were found in October 1990 in Millard County, Utah.
The two slayings were not linked until 2003, when Walsh was identified through dental records.
Rhoades was subsequently tied to Walsh through evidence of the woman's DNA found on items belonging to Rhoades, who had been arrested in April 1990 in Arizona. Rhoades was captured by an Arizona state trooper who found him torturing a naked woman chained inside the sleeper compartment of his semi rig.
Rhoades — a long-haul truck driver — is suspected by authorities of killing at least four people in 1990, as well as raping two women who survived.
In 2005, Utah authorities charged Rhoades with capital murder for killing Walsh. But a year later, the charge was dismissed in favor of Texas, where prosecutors had filed murder charges for both Walsh and Zyskowski.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Creighton Horton said at the time it "made sense" to let Texas try both homicide cases at once.
"It spares the victims having to go through all the proceedings here, and then doing it all again in Texas," Horton said.
Walsh and Zyskowski, last seen alive in January 1990, were preaching at a home for wayward men in Georgia before setting out to hitchhike to Walsh's home in Seattle.
It is unknown how the couple crossed paths with Rhoades. But authorities say the trucker shot and killed Zyskowski, then dumped his body near I-10 outside of Ozona, Texas.
Investigators say Walsh was shot multiple times in the head a week later and her naked body was dumped near I-15 in Millard County.
Walsh's body was found by deer hunters in October 1990. Zyskowski's body had been discovered months earlier.
Following Rhoades' arrest in Arizona, evidence seized at his Houston apartment was used to link him to the 1990 death of runaway Regina K. Walters, 14, of Texas, whose body was found in an old barn along I-70 in Illinois. She had been strangled with baling wire.
Rhoades is also suspected of killing Walters' boyfriend, 18-year-old Ricky Lee Jones, whose body has never been found.
The trucker was also investigated in the kidnapping and rape of a California woman who was kept chained in a truck for two weeks in February 1990 before she escaped. Rhoades was arrested, but investigators say the woman was afraid to identify her attacker.
Based on items seized from Rhoades — including photographs of other women and jewelry — authorities believe he has preyed on many more victims.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.