Man pleads guilty to two 20-year-old murder cases

Excerpt

A 44-year-old Texas man has pleaded guilty to two charges of first-degree murder in the...

A 44-year-old Texas man has pleaded guilty to two charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of two young women here 20 years ago, authorities said.

David Bruce Morton appeared before State District Judge Stephen Pfeffer Tuesday to plead guilty to killing Janet Ann Benoit in 1983 and Teri Lynn Mulvaney in 1984.

Morton was sentenced to two life terms that he will serve in New Mexico, Santa Fe police Deputy Chief Eric Johnson said.

Johnson and other detectives interviewed Morton in Lovelady, Texas, where he was serving a life sentence in the 1990 murder of Kimberly Kendall.

"At that time he admitted to those (Benoit and Mulvaney's) murders," Johnson said, adding that Morton provided details about the cases that only a person involved with the crimes would know.

Benoit had stopped in Santa Fe on her way to a job in Phoenix when she was bound and repeatedly stabbed in a motel room.

Mulvaney was Morton's next-door neighbor at a Santa Fe apartment complex in 1984. She was found strangled in her bed.

Morton was tried for Mulvaney's death in 1988, but it ended in a mistrial.

"I'm sorry this ever happened," Morton said when asked by the judge if he wanted to say anything to the families of the victims. "I wish I could take it back. I'm truly sorry for the families."

In a telephone interview from Kankakee, Ill., Benoit's brother David told the Santa Fe New Mexican he is glad his sister's killer has been sentenced.

"I don't feel any closure," he said. "We all still miss Janet. We always will."