Convicted Killer Says He's Killed 48 People

COLORADO SPRINGS – Authorities say one man claims he committed 48 murders nationwide, including nine in Colorado.Thursday morning Robert Charles Browne pleaded guilty to the 1987 murder of Rocio Delpilar Sperry.Sperry was 15 years old when she was killed in November 1987 at an apartment complex in Colorado Springs. Browne claims he put her in a dumpster after strangling her to death.Browne told authorities he murdered 48 people from about 1970 until he was arrested and charged with the murder of Heather Dawn Church, 13, in El Paso County in March 1995. Church was reported missing from her Black Forest area home in September 1991 and her body was discovered in September 1993.Authorities have linked Browne to 19 slayings in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, and South Korea. In addition to Church, authorities have accounted for seven bodies connected with Browne's claims, one of the dead was Sperry, two others were in Texas, three in Louisiana, and one in Arkansas. Browne claims he strangled Lisa Lowe, 21, to death in Arkansas in November 1991 and dumped her in a river.Katherine Hayes, 15, went missing in July 1980 in Louisiana. Browne told investigators he strangled her to death with shoelaces.Browne claims he killed 21-year-old Wanda Faye Hudson and 26-year-old Faye Self, both in Louisiana.Melody Bush, 22, was killed in Texas after Browne says he picked her up on the side of the road in March 1984. Browne says he strangled Nidia Mendoza, 17, to death in Texas in February 1984.Browne told police in many of the cases he had consensual sex with the women or girls before killing them.El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa says Browne's claims of 48 murders could be credible."It's possible he's exaggerating, but I don't think you can conduct business assuming he's exaggerating," Maketa said. "We'll continue to pursue leads." The sheriff's office says Browne claims to have strangled, shot or stabbed men and women he encountered at roadside turnouts, in bars or on the street. He would stab people with a knife, a screwdriver, or an ice pick.Browne told authorities he dismembered one victim in a motel room bathtub so he would not be seen carrying the body from the room, then put the parts in a suitcase and dumped it beside a road.Browne discussed the slayings in sporadic meetings and an exchange of letters he had with Charlie Hess, a sheriff's department cold-case investigator, over four years. Hess got involved after Browne started writing letters deputies described as "taunting" to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, but the letters abruptly broke off. "We started by writing a very direct letter to Robert indicating who we were," said Hess.Hess said Browne then started the correspondence, but he did not want the investigators to come and see him in person. However, when he broke off communication again, investigators went to see him and Browne agreed to resume the correspondence."Little by little he gave us bits of information," said Hess. "Being non-judgmental was necessary.""It became obvious with Robert that most things were a negotiation: If I can have a single cell I'll tell you this. If I can have this, I can give you three murders," said Hess. "All of the things he asked for were reasonable, within the law, with the rules of DOC.""It became obvious that we had to go on, and in my mind that there still was more," said Hess.Hess, who said he is a former FBI and CIA agent, volunteers to help the sheriff's office investigate cold cases."We don't like to call them cold cases, we like to call them unresolved cases. A cold case would indicate to me a case that is put on the shelf and forgotten. We don't forget them," said Hess.Hess says he was originally drawn toward helping the sheriff's department after his own son-in-law was murdered. Browne is the youngest of nine children, served in the military and has an extensive criminal record. He served time for a motor vehicle theft in Louisiana and also as a history of arson, cruelty to animals, and burglary.He was born on Halloween in 1952 and was married six different times. Police say they believe all of his former wives are still alive.