Serial Killer Who Spent Time In Illinois Pleads Guilty

LAKE COUNTY, IN — A serial killer and convicted sex offender who spent time in Chicago's south suburbs just days before his arrest pleaded guilty to the murders of seven women on Friday. Darren Deon Vann, 47, avoided a possible death sentence with the surprise plea in Lake County (Indiana) Superior Court, according to multiple news outlets.

Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for Vann, who was scheduled to go on trial this fall in the murders of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy of Chicago and Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville.

Now, Vann will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. He will be formally sentenced on May 25.

In addition to the murders of Hardy and Jones, he was accused in the deaths of five other women, according to the Chicago Tribune: Teaira Batey, 28, of Gary; Tracy Martin, 41, of Gary; Kristine Williams, 36, of Gary; Sonya Billingsley, 52, of Gary; and Tanya Gatlin, 27, of Highland.

Vann was arrested in October 2014 after Hardy's body was found in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond. The teenager, who had recently moved to Chicago, had been strangled after police say Vann arranged a meeting with her on Backpage.com. The website, known as a haven for those seeking prostitutes and linked to multiple crimes and murders — including the 2016 slaying of another Illinois teen — was seized and shut down by the FBI earlier this year.

In the days after Hardy's murder, Vann led police to the bodies of several other women hidden in abandoned buildings in Gary, according to the Times of Northwest Indiana.

In Illinois, Cook County Sheriff's investigators searched abandoned homes in the south suburbs after learning Vann had been in the area days before his arrest.

"We don't know what reason would bring him here but clearly it would be beyond negligent on our part not to run out the very areas where has been killing and dumping people," Sheriff Tom Dart said at the time. Police and cadaver dogs searched 20 abandoned homes in Harvey and Markham but did not find any human remains.

Police in Illinois said Vann spent more than 12 hours in the south suburbs before heading back to Indiana, where he was arrested.

Vann changed his plea to guilty a day after his defense team filed a motion in Lake County Superior Court, the Tribuen reported.

Prior to his arrest for the murders, Vann served five years in a Texas prison on a sexual assault conviction. In 2014, the Chicago Tribune reported that Vann told police that he had killed other people “going back 20 year" in Indiana.

Four years before Vann's arrest for Hardy's murder, Scripps news service had alerted Indiana authorities to a string of murders going back two decades that the news service believed could be the work of a serial killer. Police in Gary, Indiana, at the time did not respond and declined requests for interviews, according to the Indy Channel.

Photo: In this handout provided by the Lake County Sheriff Department, Darren Vann poses for a mug shot photo in Gary, Indiana. (Photo by John Gress/Getty Images)