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Illinois lifer pleads to 2 capital murder counts in Texas

Posted March 29, 2012 1:16 pm

Associated Press

HOUSTON — A man authorities have branded a sadistic serial killer who already is serving a life prison term in Illinois for killing a 14-year-old girl has avoided a possible death penalty in Texas.

Robert Ben Rhoades, a Houston trucker who kept a torture dungeon in the cab of his long-haul rig, accepted two life prison sentences as he pleaded guilty this week to two counts of capital murder when he appeared before a West Texas judge.

Rhoades was charged with the 1990 abductions and slayings of a couple from Seattle.

The body of 28-year-old Douglas Scott Zyskowski was found near Interstate 10 east of Ozona but wasn’t identified until 1992. The remains of his 24-year-old wife, Patricia Walsh, were found near a Utah canyon. She wasn’t identified until 13 years later.

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