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Man gets 245 years for three killings in Indiana

A man originally charged with killing seven people more than a decade ago was sentenced Friday to 245 years in prison for three of the slayings and the rape of a teenage girl.
/ Source: The Associated Press

A man originally charged with killing seven people more than a decade ago was sentenced Friday to 245 years in prison for three of the slayings and the rape of a teenage girl.

Eugene Britt, who turns 49 on Saturday, will serve that sentence concurrently with his sentence of life in prison plus 100 years for the 1995 slaying of an 8-year-old girl.

Britt pleaded guilty but mentally ill on Oct. 6 to murder in the perpetration of rape in the deaths of Nakita Moore, 14, Tonya Dunlap, 24, and Maxine Walker, 41; and in the rape of the 13-year-old.

He had also admitted to raping and killing three other women — Betty Askew, 50, Michelle Burns, 27, and Deborah McHenry, 41 — but charges in those deaths were dropped in the plea agreement, under which he waived his right to appeal.

Last November, Britt was arrested in the August slaying of Sarah Lynn Paulsen, 8. In a confession to police in her death, Britt admitted to nine killings, though no charges were ever filed in two of the cases.

Britt reached his plea agreement in the killings of Moore, Dunlap and Walker a week after a judge ruled he was mentally retarded and could not be sentenced to the death penalty.

‘God knows I’m guilty’
Shaking and weeping in the courtroom Friday, Britt said he regretted his crimes.

“I’m truly sorry for my sins and I take full responsibility for my actions, ain’t nobody but myself,” he said. “God knows I’m guilty. God knows I’m guilty.”

Defense attorney Gojko Kasich asked the judge to recommend that Britt be held in isolation. The judge said Britt will be housed in a maximum-security prison.

Prosecutor Bernard A. Carter said in a statement that Britt had inflicted “unfathomable” violence on his victims and expressed sympathy to their relatives.

“This plea and sentence ensures that he will spend the rest of his life in prison — never to inflict such agony on other victims and their families,” Carter said.