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For years, Thomas Evan Noffsinger insisted he had nothing to do with the disappearance of a Sandy woman.
And when he was charged a few years ago in the cold case slaying of a Millcreek teen, Noffsinger pleaded not guilty.
But on Friday, prosecutors said Noffsinger, as part of a plea bargain that encompassed both murders, has admitted he strangled and raped Annette Hill, 38, and Felicia Pappas, 17, about a month apart in 1989.
The admissions confirm what police long believed: Noffsinger — who already is serving life without the possibility of parole for the 1990 murder of a Salt Lake City chef — is a serial killer.
Third District Judge Katie Bernards-Goodman immediately sentenced him to life without parole, which will run consecutively to his current sentence.
In exchange for his plea, the death penalty was taken off the table for Noffsinger, who was charged with aggravated murder in Pappas' slaying, and rape and sodomy charges against him in that case were dropped.
On his end, Noffsinger, 47, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Pappas' death and admitted killing Hill, whose body has never been found. He also provided authorities with details about her slaying — including that he put her body in a Dumpster.
Although Noffsinger was never charged in the Hill disappearance, Bernards-Goodman said Friday's sentence was imposed on behalf of both victims.
Before the judge meted out the sentence, Pappas' friends and family members talked about the impact of the brutal slaying and their rage at Noffsinger. Many of them wore T-shirts with a picture of Pappas and "Justice 4 Felicia" on the front and a poem the teen wrote on the back.
"I'm glad the state of Utah is putting you away forever," her father, Carl Pappas, said. "Please keep him locked up until he dies because that's where he belongs. You're not a man. You're an animal."
Kim Jones, a friend, said Noffsinger "took out one of the best lives there ever was." Another friend, Sally Russell, said she saw an "empty vessel" when she looked at Noffsinger, who showed no emotion during the court hearing.
Friend Alyssia Adams called him a "soulless, evil monster" who is incapable of remorse.
"You don't deserve forgiveness," she added.
Hill's family members were present but chose not to speak at the sentencing.
In a letter to the court, Hill's daughter, Tiffany Childress, who was 11 years old when her mother vanished, said that because of Noffsinger, "lives and hearts were ripped apart and left with nothing but jagged edges to try to mend and heal."
"I will never experience [my mother] helping me hold my first child, or argue with her over politics, or enjoy a sunset together, or feel her powerful and unsinkable spirit," Childress wrote. "These are the effects of a serial killer — not the shock of a news story — but the everyday moments robbed and lost forever."
Noffsinger had earlier dodged another possible death sentence by admitting he killed Victor Aguilar, a pie chef at a Marie Callender's restaurant in Salt Lake City, who left behind a wife and four young children.
Noffsinger pleaded guilty to capital murder in that case and was sentenced to up to life behind bars in December 1990.
Investigators say Noffsinger stabbed Aguilar five times in the back and slit his throat after the chef caught him and an accomplice trying to steal a safe from the restaurant on March 3, 1990.
The accomplice, Grant David Stensrud, who claimed he kicked Aguilar and then left the kitchen, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Stensrud was sentenced to five years to life and paroled in 2007.
Pappas, a student at Granite High School, was found dead behind an office building near 4500 South and 600 East on April 7, 1989. She was naked from the waist down and police said there were broken faux-fingernails and broken sunglasses at the scene, indicating she had struggled with her attacker.
The case went cold until a Unified Police Department detective reexamined the death. Testing in 2011 on swabs collected during Pappas' autopsy indicated that Noffsinger — who also went by the name Thomas Trujillo — was the source of the samples.
Prosecutor Vincent Meister said Friday that Noffsinger assaulted and killed Pappas after he happened to see her walking home that night.
About a month later, on May 12, 1989, he knocked Hill unconscious after spotting her at a pay phone at 900 East and South Temple, according to Meister. Noffsinger strangled and sexually assaulted her, then threw her body in a gas station Dumpster and covered it with trash, Meister said.
While investigating the Aguilar slaying, police found Hill's bloodied purse, a prescription pill bottle, jewelry, nightgown and underwear at apartments Noffsinger had rented.
At 2010 parole hearing for Aguilar's murder, Noffsinger claimed he never met Hill but stole the items belonging to her during a car burglary.
Following the hearing, the parole board ordered Noffsinger to serve natural life for the man's slaying.
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC