Jailed Serial Killer Edward Surratt Confesses to 6 More Murders

A serial killer currently serving two life sentences has admitted to murdering six other people in the late 1970s.

Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) have said that it has closed four unsolved murder cases after Edward Surratt confessed to killing the victims in 1977 and 1978.

In March, PSP investigators traveled to the Raiford Correctional Facility in Raiford, Florida, to interview Surratt. During questioning, he admitted he murdered William and Nancy Adams, Guy and Laura Mills, and Joel Krueger in 1977, as well as John Shelkons in 1978.

As reported by the Beaver County Times, William Adams, 31, died of a shotgun blast to the chest at home, with his body later found by his 7-year-old child. Nancy Adams, 29, was kidnapped before being killed by Surratt.

John Shelkons, 56, was beaten to death in his home in January 1978, along with his wife, who survived the attack.

The bodies of Guy and Laura Mills, both 65, were found in their ransacked home in Breezewood on January 1, 1978, suffering from fatal shotgun wounds. The body of Joel Kruger was found around three miles away, having also been killed with a shotgun.

"PSP investigators never stopped seeking justice for the victims of these terrible crimes and their families," Lieutenant Colonel Scott Price, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police, said in a statement.

"We hope that the confessions announced today will help bring some semblance of closure to the victims' loved ones."

Surratt was only ever convicted of one murder in South Carolina in 1978, as well as violent offenses in Florida including burglary and assault involving rape.

For decades, he was also linked to more than a dozen murders in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but was never found guilty of any of them.

In 2007, Surratt admitted to six killings in Pennsylvania and Ohio: David and Linda Hamilton in September 1977, John Davis, 63, and his 61-year-old wife, Mary, who were killed with a shotgun in November 1977, as well as 17-year-old John Feeny and his 15-year-old fiancé Ranee Gregor, whose body has never been recovered.

Following his latest confession, district attorneys in each county agreed not to prosecute Surratt for the murders because he is already serving life sentences in Florida.

"Transporting someone who is serving a homicide life sentence in Florida up here would be too risky to him and people transporting him, to the jury and court personnel. It's more important to get the closure than another conviction for homicide," Beaver County District Attorney David Lozier told WPXI.

Rita Feeny, mother of Surratt victim John Feeny, said she doesn't believe life behind bars is a suitable punishment.

"I'd like to be the person who takes his hands and pulls his fingernails out by the roots while he is awake," she told WPXI.

Surratt is still a suspect in at least 10 other unsolved homicides in Pennsylvania, Ohio and South Carolina.