A Toledo truck driver pleaded guilty this afternoon to his role in the murders of five prostitutes and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Dellmus Colvin, 47, was in the second week of his trial on murder and kidnapping charges of two women and faced a potential death sentence. But Colvin reached a plea agreement with prosecutors to spare his life.

Colvin pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated murder and one count of complicity to commit murder.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik sentenced him to four consecutive life terms for the aggravated murder charges, for which he is ineligible for parole.

Investigators have long suspected Colvin in other prostitute deaths and said today that he may be implicated in murders around the country.

He was on trial for the deaths of Jackie Simpson and Melissa Weber. Prosecutors said Colvin suffocated Simpson with a pillow at a South Toledo motel. Her decomposed body was discovered April 23, 2003. Ms. Weber's body was found May 9, 2005 in North Toledo.

Prosecutors said the victims worked as prostitutes to finance their crack cocaine addictions.

Those whom Colvin killed were:

* Ms. Weber, 37, whose body was found under a couch in a vacant trucking terminal behind 1045 Matzinger Rd. Ms. Simpson, whose body was discovered under bushes near a tanning business at 4200 Creekside Ave.

* Lily Summers, 43, whose body was found April 8, 2002, in a 45-foot white tractor-trailer behind B&B Repairs, 4400 Martin-Moline Rd., near Metcalf Field.

* Valerie Jones, a 38-year-old grandmother whose skeletal remains were found Jan. 6, 2000, near the Ottawa River and Hoffman Road landfill.

* Jacquelynn A Thomas 42, whose body was found Sept. 2, 2000, on Smith road off Telegraph Road in Monroe County.

Read more in later editions of The Blade and toledoblade.com.

First Published October 2, 2006, 7:19 p.m.