Ex-Marine Pleads Not Guilty To 5 Calif. Murders

A former Marine convicted of killing three women in Illinois has pleaded not guilty to murdering five more women in California.

A spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney says Andrew Urdiales entered the plea Friday in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Authorities say Urdiales killed five women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties between 1986 and 1995. Many of his victims were prostitutes who were repeatedly stabbed or shot.

Urdiales was sentenced to death for the Illinois murders. Two of his sentences were commuted to life without parole, and after that state banned the death penalty, so was the third.

Urdiales was extradited last year to Orange County, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Urdiales is being held without bail. His next court hearing is Feb. 10.