Serial killer Krajcir pleads guilty in 1979 slaying of Pa. nurse

READING, Pa. (AP) — A serial killer who has confessed to slaying nine women pleaded guilty Friday in the 1979 rape and murder of a nurse in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Timothy Krajcir, 63, was sentenced to life in prison for killing Myrtle Rupp, 51, inside her Berks County home.

The sentence angered Rupp's nephew, who said Krajcir deserved to die.

"I'm not sure another life sentence for Timothy Krajcir really serves justice here. It really only prolongs the life of a career criminal who in my opinion deserves the death penalty," said David Rupp, reading from a statement in Berks County Court. "If he doesn't deserve the death penalty, who does?"

He said he hopes Krajcir is killed in prison.

Krajcir has already received life sentences for five killings in southeast Missouri and two killings in southern Illinois.

DNA evidence implicated him in several of the slayings. He has been in prison for sex crimes since 1983 and confessed to the murders after receiving assurances he wouldn't face the death penalty.

Krajcir posed as a police officer investigating a burglary to get into Rupp's home in Muhlenberg Township, according to police. Krajcir pulled out a knife, tied Rupp to a bed, raped her and strangled her.

Rupp, a widow, worked as a nurse at the former Community General Hospital and was recovering from foot surgery at the time of the attack.

Krajcir had lived in Muhlenberg Township for several years as a teenager, and lived in nearby Allentown at the time Rupp was killed. He was linked to her slaying last year by a DNA match.

Judge Linda K.M. Ludgate sentenced Krajcir via closed-circuit television from the Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois.

David Rupp said he hopes Krajcir "encounters someone in the prison population exactly like himself, who one day arbitrarily decides to make Timothy Krajcir his victim.

"As that someone strangles the last breath of life from Krajcir's pathetic, repulsive existence, perhaps Krajcir will reflect on what he has done not only to Myrtle but all his other victims," said Rupp, his voice shaking. "That is precisely how Timothy Krajcir deserves to die. That would be justice."